Spirit in Action

Sex & Sexuality, Part 1

Peter Alsop has the wit & talent to discuss tough topics in a way that can open eyes & change minds. Today & next week he'll talk with us about love, sex, sex roles, sexuality and more. Peter is a great combination of deep thinker & musician, humorous & creative lyricist, and educational psychologist. Among other places, find this songs in the video of Alsop for Adults Concert: Peter's Song on Love, Sex & Gender.

Duration:: 55m
Broadcast on:: 10 Jan 2016
Audio Format:: other

[music] ♪ Let us sing this song for the healing of the world ♪ ♪ That we may hear as one ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ ♪ And my lives will feel the echo of our healing ♪ Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark helps me. Each week, I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, creative action, and progressive efforts. I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service, hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred fruit in your own life. ♪ Let us sing this song for the dreaming of the world ♪ ♪ That we may dream as one ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ If you don't know who Peter Alsop is, then it's about time. I've had Peter as my guest numerous times, and with good reasons. Peter Alsop not only makes fun, beautiful, singable, delightful tunes. He fills them with penetrating lyrics, and what better topic to examine deeply, especially with Peter's glorious wit, than sex. This is not sex in the narrow, objectified sense, but sex roles, relationships, healthy sexuality, and more. Gathered from the number of his releases, Peter's put together a double CD collection called Songs on Sex and Sexuality, and put them in a video just released on his Alsop for Adults concert. Peter's Songs on Love, Sex, and Gender. More on that, as Peter Alsop joins us by phone from California. Peter, it's so wonderful to have you back again for Spirit in Action. Nice to be here. Thanks for having me. I think you're in danger with this recording of being the most frequent guest I've had on my programs in the past ten and a half years. So congratulations to a Gold Star shortly. Thank you. It's like I just keep writing these songs. I can't stop. It's like how it's falling. I can't get up. It's like I've written another album. I don't know what to do with it. Well, they do keep pouring out of you, and I haven't found one that's not a gem yet. As you know, Peter, just recently I ordered a few of your CDs for my granddaughter, who are four years old, because we've been playing them in the car, and they're falling in love with it, just like I did 30 years ago when you came out with those albums. So it's wonderful to be able to pass that on. Do you have anything on the horizon right now? What I did this year is I pulled together a bunch of artists in Los Angeles, younger bands and people, because a lot of the songs, I mean, you know, as you're speaking about the kids' songs, they're evergreen. So I was trying to figure out how can I get some of these songs as I'm starting to get in off the road. I'm not traveling as much as I used to. So I'm sure how can I get some of these songs into younger artists' hands? So I thought, well, maybe I should have a contest and see, make a $1,000 award. The person that does the best person of a Peter Allsop song, and they went, you know, that's nuts. I don't like the competition in that. So what I've been doing is I've been doing fundraisers. I did one for my wife's theater called Allsop for Adults. And there are a bunch of different actors and bands. It's not a contest, but you say, "Would you come and learn one of these songs?" And I'm going to focus on this one. It's going to be love and sex and gender issues, you know. And it was a wonderful two-hour concert that I put up on Vimeo and people can download the concert. So that's been my latest thing, and I've grandchildren now. So they kids do something and I start laughing and I say, "Wow, that'd be a good song." So who knows where I want to have enough material for another kids' one? I will tell you, there's a woman I ran into. She's been using qigong massage with autistic kids, which has been an interest of mine. I taught autistic kids 40 years ago in New York City and I've done lots of workshops and stuff around kids with special needs. And it's really interesting because she's finding that, you know, we know that kids that are in the autism spectrum, you know, sometimes like they're screaming, you're putting on their socks, but they can do autistic kids and, you know, from Asperger's up throughout the whole range. They tend to have trouble relating or connecting with the people around them. And the field that's talked about is always thought about as a brain issue that's happened. And this woman who started working with massage just found out that the kids have different kind of sentient maps and different parts of their body. So if you take an infant and you put their cheek against the mother's breast, they start groping for the nipples so that they can eat. But if you can't feel anything against your cheek, you don't do that, do you? It just starts right from there. She said, "Autistic kids don't tend to point at things because they can't feel their hands a lot of time." So why would you use your hand to point to something that doesn't feel like part of you? Your whole cognitive map of yourself needs to be integrated in some way or rather. And I've never heard anybody in the medical or psychological profession talk about it this way. And so she's been getting the parents to do this cheek-on massage with their kids, which is, you know, you do this first and this second and the third. To help the kids start to integrate the way their body feels. And the parents are getting to help in this, which is one of the other big issues from families with autistic kids is that the parents feel guilty so that they can't relate, they just wander around, they don't look in the eye and all of that. And so she's having tremendous results. And I just wrote a two-gong song for her about that process. So it's, stuff comes in from places I don't expect it. And I gather songs and who knows when the next album will be on. Well, "Alsap Poor Adults" is the inspiration for this series today and next week when we'll be filling in with these songs about sex, sex, role, sexuality, all of the different things that touch the big "S" word, sex. That's a problematic thing for our society. And yet our society is so steeped in sex. I mean, you can't look at television without seeing any number of messages about sex hitting you. So when did you become aware of the hypersexuality of our society, of the environment around us? Well, it starts right off in the beginning when you're little and it's the first question you ask when a baby's born. What is it, a boy or a girl? Your gender stuff, your gender conditioning starts off right off the bat. Why don't we play? It's only a wee wee, so what's the big deal? Because little kids, a lot of times, don't see what the big total focus from parents is. And so I wrote this song. It's only a wee wee, so what's a big deal? And that way it will be some music along with this discussion. What do you think? I think here we got to listen to it. Here goes. As soon as you're born, grown-ups check reappear. And then they decide just how you're supposed to be. Girls pink and quiet, boys noisy and blue. Seems like a dumb way to choose what you'll do while it's only a wee wee, so what's the big deal? It's only a wee wee, so what's on the bus? It's only a wee wee, and everyone's gone run. There's better things to discuss. Now girls must use make-up girls names and girls clothes. And boys must use sneakers, but not panty hoes. The grown-ups will teach you the rules to their dance. And if you get confused, they'll say look in your pants. Well it's only a wee wee, so what's the big deal? It's only a wee wee, so what's on the bus? It's only a wee wee, and everyone's gone run. There's better things to discuss. If I live to be nine, I won't understand. White grown-ups are totally obsessed with their glands. If I touch myself, don't you do that, I'm told. And they greet me like I might explode. Well it's only a wee wee, so what's the big deal? It's only a wee wee, so what's on the bus? It's only a wee wee, and everyone's gone run. There's better things to discuss. Now grown-ups watch closely each move that we make. Boys must not cry, and girls must make cake. It's all very formal, and I think it smells. Let's all be abnormal and act like ourselves. It's only a wee wee, so what's the big deal? It's only a wee wee, so what's on the bus? It's only a wee wee, and everyone's gone run. There's better things to discuss. Everybody's saying, it's only a wee wee, so what's the big deal? It's only a wee wee, so what's on the bus? It's only a wee wee, and everyone's gone run. There's better things to discuss. CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Well, I didn't want any of you adults to feel left out, so I wrote a special verse just for you. Here it is. She walked to the market past brave cavaliers. She tried to avoid them, they whistled and jeered. She gave them the finger, they gave her more noise, so she stopped, and she sang to those bright little boys. It's only a wee wee, so what's the big deal? It's only a wee wee, so why do you watch? It's only a wee wee, and everyone's gone run. There's more to life than your crotch. It's only a wee wee, Peter Alsop song. His website is peteralsop.com. He's been a perennial favorite of mine, since I was first introduced to him in the early 1980s. And that song, Peter, I think is one of your first nominally kids songs. How popular is it actually with kids? You know, it's interesting because they don't do it with kids much. It's kind of a faux kid song. I did it with my kids, and it's not a problem. Kids love singing because they get the wee wee, and you're not supposed to say, talk about that stuff, you know? But for me, if I were playing at a school, and I think it's only a wee wee, so what's the big deal? The kids go home and say, "Mommy, you sang about a wee wee today!" And the principal's phone is off the hook, because they're like, "What are you doing with my children there?" So it dawned to me, I have to be careful where I do that. When I have grownups in the audience, which a lot of my career has been to go out and talk to human service professionals about issues that kids and families have, and ways to use music and humor, and the arts, and other things to get stuff out on the table, these loaded subjects, so that people can talk about them, because there's so many different issues that people are struggling with, and as you said, it's not just a lot of sex on the air, it's certainly that, but there's all this confusion about romance, and falling in love, you know? You do, you get a little bit nuts, you know? Almost addicted to wanting to be with this person, so much I just want to be there. I don't care about anything else or him or whoever it is. And that, of course, subsides, and it seems to be also part of the natural human condition to have those really just strong, overwhelming feelings about somebody else, and if you pair off and are together for a while, they start to fade, and you get to look at your stuff that's going on, and how am I relating? What's going on, what's mine, and what's hers, and what's his? So it's only, it's only, we always do what's a big deal, it's sort of trying to get parents and grownups to take a look at some of the stuff that we do, as we wander through this world, and what our gender conditioning is, and how we've been formatted to think about this is only for girls to do, this is only for boys to do. Unfortunately, a lot of that's just changing, but it's still worldwide, it's a huge issue. We're seeing it in during this election year. It's 2016, and a lot of the presidential nominees, some people are just not lifting women and not concerned about the fact that women do not still have the same power and access to power and authority that men do, and I think this needs to be an issue for men as well, that we need to really work on that. You bet, and because of that song, it's only not just that one, of course. There are many other songs, many other parts of my life that led me in this direction. When my child was born, we didn't know what gender it was, we picked out a name ahead of time, Chris Leslie, which we knew could be for a boy or a girl, and it would be no discomfort that way. The other thing that we did, by the way, you're right, as soon as you have a new baby, the first comment is what gender is it, right? They want to know the weight, the height, and the gender, and so we would say the weight and the height, and we wouldn't say the gender, and people would say, well, yeah, but you didn't say if it was a boy or a girl, and we said, well, if you really want to know, you come over and change your diaper, and you'll find out. That was our technique. There was a wonderful story in this magazine 40 years ago about the story of X. I don't remember who wrote it, but X was a little person that the parents, X would wear overalls to school, but didn't know if it was a boy or a girl, and the other kids were going, you know, X could run the 100-yard dash faster than anybody else, but also bake the best pie in kindergarten or first grader ever. They were doing a little baking thing, and so all the other kids wanted to be like X, and it was just all the other parents were getting upset because X didn't fit the mold, and it was quite wonderful because there was no way to tell what gender X was, and it was upsetting everybody. It sounds like your family. Well, gender is such a big issue in our society. Actually, I'm running through this issue right now with my granddaughters, one of them in particular. She's very queued into four years old. This is princess, this is not, this is what color I have to wear. It's all those things that you have, and it's only we, but the boys equally seem to have their things that they can and can't do too frequently. One of your most powerful songs foundational for me was "Let the women in you come through," and I'd like to play it, but would you like to say anything about it to introduce our audience to the song? Just to respond to what you said. I had two daughters, and I was buying them like trucks and things like that, and all they wanted to do is play with Barbie dolls and stuff where pink dresses are like, "Where have I gone wrong?" I certainly, I'm noticing, because I haven't had a son from infancy. I have a step son, but my daughters have had sons, and I'm watching them pick everything up to become a missile, a gun, or something you can throw or a projectile, so sort. It just seems to be, you know, "Iakko-iak-alari" in Latin means to throw, and when little boys pee, they've got to ejaculate it and the whole concept of ejaculation with semen is the thing, "Let's throw and get it out." I mean, and it's just like, "Okay," and I haven't just seen it with my daughters, you know, so I know there's certain gender issues. The difference is, is when society places that on them and forces them to be a certain way, because that's what you're supposed to do. That's the part for me that feels like, you know, the difference between when you educate, "educari" means to nourish, so what you want to do is create a safe place for this person to grow like a plant instead of trying to force it to be what you think it ought to be. Just create a safe place and marvel and love what comes up. And therefore, let the woman and you come through by Peter Alsop. You're holding in, 'cause you're a man who never cries. I'm not as tough as you, my friend, but since you ask for my advice, let the woman and you come through. She's trying to let you know she's there. She colors everything you do, and the man and you get scared. You like to dance. I've seen you dance when you thought no one was there. I've heard sorrow in your voice, but you laugh like you don't care. It's hard to hide your gentle side. It's a lonely way to be. Take it from a friend who knows, an old old friend like me. Let the woman in you come through. She's trying to let you know she's there. She colors everything you do, and the man and you get scared. You'll fight to prove that you're a man. You'll fight to prove you're right. You work hard and you play hard, and you stay up late at night. Working hard's a way to hide. From the dumb things some folks say, but holding tenderness inside is only throwing it away. Let the woman in you come through. She's trying to let you know she's there. She colors everything you do, and the man and you get scared. So you tell me that I'm crazy, and I know you don't like kids, especially little sissies. Yeah, I know you never did, but I've seen you with the tough ones. The ones the others all come down, and you know that they're the frightened ones, and you know because you're like them. Let the woman in you come through. She's trying to let you know she's there. She colors everything you do, and the man and you get scared. Let the woman in you come through. Be a different kind of brave. She'll show you love's the difference between a freeman and a slave. Peter Alsop is, I guess, today for Spirit in Action, his website, PeterAlsop.com. You'll find a treasure trove of music. For children and for adults, and sometimes it's hard to tell the line between the two. I think of let the woman in you come through as an adult song, though it's certainly a message. How many boys do we know who feel that they can't cry or some other such message? Let that tenderness exist. They can't dance. I've been an international folk dance teacher for a few decades, and I've gone into schools. Up through sixth grade, generally the boys were okay with dancing. But generally by middle school, they would get recalcitrant. On the other hand, I am a man, man. I got a beard. I do not look like the standard feminine archetype of our society. Hey, there's this man up there doing that, and it's a strong thing. Maybe I can do this. Maybe I don't have to be afraid of it. I've certainly seen those issues. It's interesting that you, and I guess you have a stepson through Ellen. It was ten or eleven when we got together. Okay. Did you notice the issues happening with him? He could be a boy. He could be a man. Is it okay to let the woman in him come through with a strong feminist mother like Ellen? Yeah. Like me, I think she doesn't like labels as much. I don't know that she would have called herself a feminist so that the way that she would certainly encourage and allow for crying and not stop someone from crying with a boy the same way that you might, if you were brought up on a ranch or something like that, where boys don't cry, a ranch is either. But I guess I'm dealing hard enough to talk without using stereotypes sometimes. But there's fear of emotion is one of the things that happens, yeah, because emotions are contagious. And so if I'm a guy and I see somebody crying, I don't really come and cut it out. Everything's going to be fine. You know, and here, drink this, or here, I'll wipe your eyes. There's some Kleenex because guess what's going to start coming up for me if I just sit there and say, yeah, no, I know. It looks like you're having a hard time. You want to talk about it? If I am not comfortable with my own sadness that might come up, then I'm going to try and get people around me to stop doing it, whether it's sadness or fear or anger, those kinds of things. So one of the things I've taught for years is how do you help kids have a healthy feelings vocabulary with happy, sad, scared and angry. What do you do with those things? And how do you model that? What you were describing about yourself is, I was setting out a model out there. One of the things I just heard this morning, I was listening to some women in England that were on the radio that were talking about trying to get paid for domestic work because women do most of the care. You know, their bodies are set up for that. They feed and they give birth to the human race. And yet they still do not get paid equitably. There's a pejorative about being a caring person. You don't get paid as much a lot of times. And one of the things that they talked about, as they mentioned, one of the ones I know, a male nurse who was told by his boss that he was spending too much time with the patients and just bandage them and leave and don't talk to them. And what she said, she said, you know, what happens when you do that is that's brutalizing. It's like imagine what's going on for the person who's getting bandaged when the person is just treating them like a thing, their body, and just leaving as opposed to talking and relating and caring and actually being caring and spending some time and effort and focus on who are you in there in this body that's damaged that I'm putting bandages on, you know, who are you and how are you doing and, you know, and I care about you. It's critically important difference, you know. And there's a lot of men who do care and who look at our systems that we put in place because our male brains are more oriented to like how do we set up some kind of a system that will work here. What's the structure? We're more comfortable with that. It tends to be one of the kind of anatomical brain differences that we have with women, not that women can't do that, but they, well, the research that I've seen is this woman can multitask and differently than men. And we tend to work more linearly with us to try and fix their steps so that works over there. Okay, now next we'll do that. So, you know, how do we, those of us who understand the importance of caring, try to put that on and wear that in some way that we'll model it for our little boys and to show up for the women in our lives who tend to do that. That all being said, if you're looking at male and female behaviors, it's just about any behavior or man does. You can find a woman that does it also so that the normal curve of behaviors for human beings with male and female overlap an awful awful lot. They're not exactly the same, but they overlap. But we have to admit women cannot draw in the snow as well as we can by peeing. You know, I don't know about what well means. You know, look at Jackson Pollock. You know, you don't have to stay in the lines, you know, so maybe they do as well as who the judge is. You know, there's a couple of your songs that I think we could supply here that would give people an idea musically of what you're talking about. One of them is strength, and the other one is maybe don't need no silver spoon, but I'd like you to pick which one we're going to play. There's two baby needs a parent. Okay, baby needs a parent by Peter Alsop. Baby don't need no silver spoon. They don't need no rubber dub dub. It's a parent that a baby needs a parent who can give that baby some love. Now every baby's got one mama. And every baby's got one pop. These days some babies live with one or the other because the parents get all split up. Now if a baby's only got one person to guide that baby along, well you might think that's a one-sided baby, but maybe you might be wrong, though everybody says that a baby girl needs to learn a woman's gentle touch. And the boy needs a man to raise a man to show him how to be tough. Now you know a baby can't grow up gentle, or when a gentle daddy takes good care, and a baby can't grow up strong, and when a strong rib mama is there. The baby don't need no silver spoon. They don't need no rubber dub dub. Well it's a parent that a baby needs a parent who can give that baby some love. Now every baby's got to have at least one person who can be both gentle and strong. Well if the mama and the daddy can both do that then that baby's never gonna go wrong. Well a baby don't need no silver spoon. They don't need no rubber dub dub. Well it's a parent that a baby needs a parent who can give that baby some love. You might think of it as a kid song or an adult song. The truth of the matter is from my point of view is maybe we shouldn't put a label on it and we should all just listen to baby needs a parent by Peter Alsop, PeterAlsop.com. He's been my guest numerous times on spirit and action and song of the soul. One of my favorites from the early 80s when I first got to know his music, and that song Peter clearly lays it out. Men and women can do the same things. Each individual might have a better ability, a native ability. It might be easier for them to do something but our abilities by and large overlap and so we don't need to pigeonhole people. And you said Peter that you don't like labels but of course that's what language is. Putting a label on things, an idea, an action, a descriptor. So that's what language does but then labels can have the negative effect of making us not think outside the lines. Could you talk about your discomfort with labels, what the root of it is for you? Well you know when you talk about words I'm mostly talking about nouns as being labels and you know if I can say the word dog and everybody that's out there listening with think of something and all the dogs that we're coming up with are probably pretty different from each other. You know there may be two people in the environment who knows but one's heavier than the other one because their master feeds them too much. I don't know. Verbs are real different. For me verbs are where it's at. Verbs help me as a human service professional, as a parent, as a human being. You know I think people come up to this to say so you're a liberal aren't you? And I go well I don't know why. I'm a Republican you know and I don't really know what that means. Tell me what you do. Well I get up on Sunday mornings and I go on a health feed bar people. I go over there with you. You know I do that too. Absolutely what else you do? Well I send money to Dictania and go well I don't do that particular thing. Tell me why you do that behavior and I'll tell you why I don't do it and I'd be curious why you think that's a good idea. So at least we can have a dialogue but the labeling separates people whereas verbs gives you a way to look at if I label a kid as a bad kid most of you your listeners and people out there would say wow that's not going to help the kid. It's a bad kid but I've seen so many kids have been told they're bad for so long that if you're bad there's nothing you can do to change it. You're just bad so you might as well keep on acting bad. But if instead of the label if you tell me what the kid's doing it's like the word spoiled and called kid a spoiled child and I can't use that word because for me you know my brain does when I think of a child as being spoiled what do you do with meat when it spoils? Throw it away and maybe we would like to do that with some of these little buggers that are acting on but that's not helping me. Tell me what the kid is doing and the kid say if he's like he or she's like the rest of us they're probably doing the best they know how to get what it is that they want and maybe I can show them some other verbs about ways to try to get what it is that they want. It might be more successful for them. So with the kid who's bad if you tell a kid he's bad it's just labeling but if you tell him that what he did or she did that you didn't like and why and why it wasn't working and give them some other verbs that's empowering because you can change what you do but you can't change who you are and when kids are little and they hear these labels get attached to them and even big people get labels attached to us it's like you can't change it but if you can tell what it is that you're doing you can change what you do and particularly with help. So how do you feel about pronouns? I mean we've already got verbs and nouns but they're still adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions and pronouns which is a big issue these days. I mean like he and she and he and she and saying they instead of he or she they want they want to eat. I don't need to tell you it's a boy or a girl. Right for me that's a personal choice about that whereas and it's not that you don't get to choose here what I'm throwing out the different between verbs and nouns is a way to proceed when one feels stuck and I'm not sure that the pronouns enter that I'd have to have to think about a little bit more but that's a way to not label people so much just by using generic pronouns I'm thinking but I'm looking at how do you proceed because there's so many people that feel stuck out there in the world they don't know what to do many of us are dissatisfied with the way things are going or somebody comes up and does something and all of a sudden it triggers me because why would they do that to me and if I can see a little boy or girl inside of that person or a little person inside of that person but you know gender is sort of at this point if I'm just trying to if somebody passes me on the freeway there's a hell of my way and I go hey you can't do that to me and I just start chasing them and go wait a minute there's a six-year-old driving that four three fifty you know why am I chasing him he's speeding he's yelling he's angry go with God please don't kill anybody or yourself you know generally you know I worked at one time with a guy named Sid Caesar who some of you might remember he was a comedian was at one of the laughter playcomers if he said you know there's one thing I loined in life it's this that life it ain't personal and what he was talking about is so often when this stuff that we take the people are doing something around us it feels like it's a personal it's attacking us most all the time it's about them it's often not about us and if it is about us it's mostly about maybe I've checked my behavior what did I do that's making this why is this person upset with me right now is it something that they're walking around upset all the time or what was it that I did and I want to be able to listen to that even though I'm being attacked and they're not bringing up in a really helpful way if I'm going to try to deescalate what's going on here a little bit I need to really take a look and say maybe what's the truth and what they're saying so verbs are really helpful for that you know you said in terms of the pronouns that's maybe their personal choice but when is it their choice when is it my choice I mean if what I do angers someone else I remember back when I was in high school that there were people who didn't want to see young people kissing that that offended their boundaries and they thought that other people should behave to the acceptable norms or you know what that other person thought was appropriate how do you deal with that kind of thing it's not all just language it's sometimes some people's boundaries extrude and envelop other people's boundaries true it's a major issue all around us because a lot of people's style of operating the world is to set controls and try to be in charge of everything and control it because it's scary it's a scary world out there and other people talk about the nurturing parent as opposed to the controlling parent where the controlling parents kind of say you know look women and kids are emotional they do the wrong things all the time you know or I was saying parents generally it's what I'm talking about male parent in this case but it isn't always that and so I'm going to control their behavior until they're out on their own you know because it's a dangerous world out there and they'll make the wrong decisions there's a nurturing parent says you know what I'm not always going to be there for my kid and this guy's right there it is a dangerous world out there but there's times now what I can give my kid a chance to make decisions on their own when it's not that dangerous so they can start building that skill you know it's empowers them so you can't set boundaries for someone else I can't say to you if I'm a school vice principal and I can say look you guys are not supposed to be kissing here that's a rule so I mean I get that you're really attracted to each other this is not the right place to do it you need to not do it here because we have a rule about that and if you want to discuss it or we want to get the student body together and change the rule we can certainly talk about that but there's a reason that we have it let's figure out why that's hard for you to be able to control yourself and you don't seem to be able to do that but setting boundaries for me is an issue about you set boundaries for yourself like when someone's kissing me and I don't want them to kiss me or somebody's touching me in some place it's not okay and that's one of the things that we teach kids is how do you set boundaries when someone's touching you in some way that isn't okay so there's a song that we were headed toward which was don't put your hand in my pants just because we're in love don't put your hand in my pants just because we're in love don't put your hand in my pants I just want to be hard please hold my hand when we kiss I'm so tired of tugging your wrist so don't put your hand in my pants just because we're in love now you're all just singing that when it comes around again right good the night is full of stars my heart is full of love but romance starts to fade when you grab and grope and tug like boy scouts on parade like the army marching band your fingers think their crusaders heading for the holy land so don't put your hand in my pants good just because we're in love yes don't put your hand in my pants I just want to be hard when I asked if you knew how I felt I meant in my heart not under my belt so don't put your hand in my pants just because we're in love go I just want to snuggle you just want to play your one hands on my zipper and your other hand is hey I say no but you won't stop you feel in love you say well I feel that you're not listening so feel your own okay and don't put your hand in my pants just because we're in love if you got icy fingers by yourself a glove as you gaze deeply into my eyes your fingers keep creeping up on my thighs so don't put your hand in my pants just because we're in love bells are ringing birds are singing it must be spring you're after my thing so don't put your hand in my pants just because we're in love wisdom of the ages from peter alsop don't put your hands in my pants just because we're in love it's a message that needs to be heard and that's why we brought it here today for spirit in action which is Norton spirit radio production on the web at northern spirit radio.org where you'll find 10 and a half years of our programs for your free listening and download including a number of times when I visited both for spirit and action and song of the soul with peter alsop one of my perennial favorites also on the site you'll find links so if you don't know how to spell alsop for instance you can just come to northern spirit radio.org click on the link you'll get a hold of peter also on that site there's a place to post comments and we love two-way communications communication as peter just mentioned is so vital to our society let's have you communicate with me you don't just always have to listen to me also there's a place to make donations click on donate that's how this program is completely supported and it's full-time work so click on donate to help out even more important is to support your local community radio stations alternative avenues of communication are so important and community radio does that both in news and in music that you get nowhere else so start out by supporting your local community radio station again peter alsop is here this is the first of two days when peter's here with us we're talking about sex sex roles sexuality all of these things which are difficult issues for our society and yet the conversation needs to be held and so we just listened to his song don't put your hand in my pants how many people have complained that you got explicit about that peter i mean i'm i can understand that even people who are concerned that the proper boundaries be held might say but you can't say that well people certainly i guess feel that way about it you know i've had seventh grade school teachers use it it sort of depends on whether they feel they're going to get in trouble because they said it's great it's just about how to set boundaries and and be clear and and healthy when you don't want somebody touching you how do you do that it's a skill that we need to have to take care of ourselves as we go through life you said something just before we played the song about how other people's boundaries overrun yours and you said something about how what about a summons is coming in doing something that's making me feel angry i didn't really talk about it at point but i've been thinking about it when i was listening to the song one of the things that i found very helpful i you know as soon as i get something to go well that works for me in my life and makes my life a little better and helps me cope with some of the stuff that i deal with in my day-to-day family and the interactions with humans around me i usually try to pass it on sometimes i'll put it in the song but one of the things is about making me feel angry it's called owning your own feelings i don't use that phrase you made me feel angry because i don't think people make me feel angry i'm giving up my power to have that feeling and acknowledge that it's my feeling and and this sentence the way i would phrase that we're talking about the importance of language because it has to do with how we see the world around us is that when you do that i feel angry that's different i'm not blaming you for what you're doing i'm saying when you do that i have this feeling and i'm owning the feeling you know we've talked about giving away your power i think we did in the past show but i'll bring it up again it's like when the mothers yells at the kid upstairs don't you make me come up there and the kids have to go hey i can make her come up here so what he's doing you know it's like mom gave away her power to the kid didn't she and so it's the same kind of thing with that with the language that we use when we're talking about ourselves and the way we interact with people don't make me sad things happen and i and my sadness comes up and that's one of the things that if i'm afraid to ever feel sad we did talk about this about how i'm going to try to get people around me not to be sad and to cheer up and everything's okay when in fact that makes me not a safe place for them to have that feeling and sometimes it's just hard for kids in particular but for a lot of us to find a safe place to cry or to tell someone how scared we are and it always helps when you have a safe place to go so i look around we talked about the importance of caring and how there's a lot of caring men out who don't brutalize people by shutting down their caring and a lot of times the brutality that happens isn't intentional it's just we don't know what else to do with the feeling so we cut off shut down and women can certainly do that too but you know my work has been with men with privilege let me just check that i have my own many ideas about this check a little bit about that because i've heard people say i don't make you feel things on the other hand it's real important from my point of view not to use sexist language when as soon as we personify the intelligent people or the successful people as males and there's concrete consequences that often come from language and so having a feeling in response to a language that enables that makes perfect sense to me and i don't know if it's actually giving someone power to call them on their language give me an example what you're talking about what you can't okay here's an example of sexism that i saw that i think that the language supports i was in a preschool inner city school in milwaukee and i was leading the kids in activity and i asked them what they wanted to be and they couldn't volunteer anything right away but i said okay well who wants to be a doctor and you know a number of them jumping up and down saying me me and it was mostly guys and they're one or two females doing that two girls doing that the teacher who was a really wonderful woman steps in and says now wait a minute and she named the girl by name she said you told me last week you wanted to be something like a doctor but this person helps a doctor that kind of sexist language and sexist structures and which come out through language i thought was going to limit that girl who i think probably could be as good a doctor as any of those boys who knows and so having a strong reaction to that makes sense and asking someone not to use language and i don't know what you do when an entire system and it can be government you know workman's compensation instead of workers i don't know if there's not an appropriate strong reaction to that saying no don't use that language well you know once again we're talking about verbs and it's a how it's this is how you do stuff for instance i would opt to say look what's my goal Peter what's your goal what am i doing here i'm upset by the way that this teacher has gotten this child just trying to track her into thinking that she has to be a nurse and can't be a doctor have to do something else because she's a girl and maybe that's gone on maybe it's not but it sure sounds like it to me and if i because i'm feeling upset about this lack of justice and this closing down of this little girl's possibilities because of the the adult who's in charge and empowers limitations to be able to see that that she has all sorts of possibilities i'm starting to feel angry and i'm angry at this person for her behavior for what she's doing to this little girl in my perception so i can in front of the whole class say not all you know you can be a doctor you don't have to do that you don't have to listen to what your teacher says and all of a sudden because of my own agenda and my own feelings that are coming up i believe that the behavior i just described would be brutalizing the teacher in a way that i don't need to do for any reason we talked earlier in the show about caring as opposed to brutalizing which is shutting down on my own feelings i was so taken up with my anger that how i interact on the other hand after school i'm not going to just get in a car and leave i'm going to go talk to the teacher say you know i noticed when darlene was talking today that she said this is is there some reason why you thought she couldn't be a doctor whether what's going on with you and notice i'm not telling her what she should do i'm asking her because you know i need to know her nobility of purpose people do things we don't like a lot of times and there's no reason they're ever going to listen to us if we want to suggest a change that we maybe see if we don't understand what it is that they're going on and they don't feel listened to she might say oh well i know that she does this all the time or this happened to me when i was a little girl and all of a sudden now we're relating me and the teacher and she's much more willing to listen and say you know i can point out some of the stuff about oh you know as a little boy i always taught this and this i had to do that and you know now i'm playing the guitar i make a living doing music and singing and and i was told that you had to earn a lot of money and you don't do that playing folk music and kids saw stuff and i found that uh you know i had to overcome a bunch of obstacles whatever that i mean that isn't entirely i was fortunate enough to have be supported in a lot of ways by my parents and also have being a person of privilege being male i'm given a lot more latitude to explore a lot of different kinds of things than what you do get as a woman so how do i gently try to create a picture for this teacher so that my goal is to try to hope her behavior at her her understanding of this change especially doesn't do this to other little girls in her classroom and maybe thinks about it maybe say oh it's just a great book that you know you might want to look at her so i'm if she's at all interested but if i'm gonna use my anger to be angry which scares people away a lot of times and they don't want to listen to any suggestion from someone who's angry i need to like take a look at my behavior and what my goals are and how i'm going to behave and how i'm going to interact with the people in this situation so i totally agree with you angers a perfectly appropriate response when someone crosses one of your boundaries and what happened is in your description of this she didn't cross your boundary she crossed a little girl's boundary and you are being righteous about the little girl and saying i'm really angry she needs to be talked to and i agree let's try and change her behavior she's not a bad person she's a teacher she just is doing what she had the little girl inside of her maybe with the best intentions was scared for this little girl trying to accomplish something that this teacher thought she could never accomplish and how do i point that out to the teacher well thank you for that input but let's keep going with a little bit more music before we end up for today how should we conclude today's realizing that next week we're going to be back talking about more sex-sex roles and healthy sexuality which can we finish with peter what do you think about my body it's about setting boundaries it's an actual kids song because we were playing songs that are kind of about kids but not really a kid so this is really a kid song i'm all for it so folks we've been having a wonderful time talking with peter today and we'll get more next week but right now we're going to conclude by his song and it's pretty widely played and shared in the world it's called my body and it's by peter alsop and we'll see you next week peter for spirit and action thank you for having me i'll i look forward to it thanks to andrew jansen for production assistance today my body by peter alsop he's back next week we'll see you then for spirit in action my body my body's nobody's body but mine you run your own body let me run mine my heart was made to be filled up with love not to be ordered or broken or shut my hands were made to hold other hands not to hold guns in far away lands my body's nobody's body but mine you run your own body let me run mine my genes were made to pass on human traits not to be fried when your atomic waste my womb was made to make kids when i please not to obey men made laws and decrees my body's nobody's body but mine you run your own body let me run mine my body's nobody's body but mine you run your own body let me run mine our body's one body one voice is heard we each sing your freedom and we sing these words my body's nobody's body's but mine you run your own body let me run mine my nose was made to sniff and to sneeze to smell what i want and to pick when i please my body's nobody's body but mine you run your own body let me run mine my lungs were made no there when i breathe i am in charge of just how much i need my body's nobody's body but mine you run your own body let me run mine my legs were made to dance me around to walk and to run and to jump up and down my mouth was made to blow up a balloon i can eat kiss and spit i can whistle a tune no one knows my body better than me it tells me let's eat it tells me go pee my body's nobody's body but mine you run your own body let me run mine don't hit me or kick me don't push yourself don't help me too hard when you show me your love because my body's nobody's body but mine you run your own body let me run mine sometimes it's hard to send no one be strong when there are no feelings coming and i know something's wrong because my body's mine from the head to my toe please leave it alone when you hear me say no my body's nobody's body but mine you run your own body let me run mine secrets are fun when they're filled with surprise but not when they hurt us with tricks threats and lies my body's mine to be used as i choose not to be threatened or four store abuse my body's nobody's body but mine you run your own body let me run mine our bodies one body one voice is heard we sing for freedom when we sing these words my body's nobody's body but mine you run your own body let me run mine the theme music for this program is turning of the world performed by Sarah Thompson this spirit in action program is an effort of northern spirit radio you can listen to our programs and find links and information about us and our guests on our website northernspiritradio.org thank you for listening i am your host mark helps me and i welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit may you find deep roots to support you and grow steadily toward the light this is spirit in action with every voice with every song we will move this world along with every voice with every song we will move this world along and our lives will feel the echo of our healing