Episode 28 - Jaime Grant on What We Can Do Intimately With Each Other
Release Date: 11/07/2025
The Breakup Theory Episode 30 - WE ARE NOW LIVING IN THE HELLSCAPE OF POETIC SCIENCE w/ P.
The Breakup Theory
In this episode, I talk to my eternal roommate, P, about his new book, God, Artificial Intelligence, and Me. This is a really ambitious text that weaves together personal history with the history of Christianity, colonialism, technology, warfare, and resistance. It is a beautiful object in itself, with illustrations and pictures and innovative layout of text. It looks like a monster of a tome (and it definitely encompasses a cosmos), but P tries to draw the reader in without overwhelming them. I strongly suggesting purchasing the book. And just by luck, P runs a distro, A Boulder on the Tracks...
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Episode 29 - Living with Trans Despair with Simon(e) van Saarloos
The Breakup Theory
Today I am presenting a talk that Simon(e) van Saarloos and I did, kind of as a followup to our last talk together at the NYC Art Bookfair, called “Living with Trans Despair.” I’m going to give you the origin and details of the event before I present the edited recording of the event itself., so this is a bit of a long introduction. The idea to make a sequel came in the initial planning of our first talk about Simon’s book, , as we discovered we were both in the process of writing books dealing with despair. The circumstances of the event were particularly special: a friend of ours and...
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Episode 28 - Jaime Grant on What We Can Do Intimately With Each Other
The Breakup Theory
In this episode, Caroline and I talk to the wonderful Dr. Jaime M. Grant, Sex and Intimacy Coach, Researcher, Writer, and longtime Activist. She has recently published , after her previous contribution to the series, . (Yes, it’s that series!) Jaime has also written a book and been leading a workshop for many years around the world on mapping your desire, helping people get in touch with what they actually like and want and perhaps have not been able to access. Jaime has been involved in queer and racial justice movements for decades, as well as doing survivor support, research on trans...
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Episode 27 - A Conversation with Simon(e) van Saarloos: Disintegrating Linear Timelines -- NY Art Bookfair
The Breakup Theory
CW: This discussion mentions childhood sexual abuse When Simon(e) van Saarloos invited me to be in conversation with them at the surrounding their recently published , I was honored and excited. We had already been discussing recording a conversation for the Breakup Theory, so it was serendipitous that this event came along. I love doing the podcast, but it’s really exciting for me to do public talks and get to engage directly with people. Simon and I met before the event and we found that we were able to really push each other’s thinking into interesting and exciting places, so we...
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Episode 26 - Agony Letter: The Thing That Cracks Us Open
The Breakup Theory
CW: brief mention of suicidal ideation Oh my god, we are so back! As with everyone, this has been a year of hell, or lead paint, or whatever, and I have only been able to release a few episodes. But let me tell you, I am sitting on a few waiting to be edited and have plans for more, getting back into a regular production. For this episode, I invited the beautiful Dean Spade to respond to a listener letter with me. He has started up a in the wake of his book, with the same name , where has been discussing relationships and giving advice about how we can fight and love together better....
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Episode 25 - Practices that Do the Unchoosing with Nat Raha and Mijke van der Drift
The Breakup Theory
In this episode, I speak with two beautiful trans writers, artists, thinkers, Nat Raha and Mijke van der Drift. They recently published with Pluto Books. Their book describes an expansive ethics of collectivity, care, and complicity from the perspective of trans femme knowledge and experience. Nat and Mijke developed the book over the last number of years through different iterations as a zine and a conference, but also as an offering from many years of organizing, not just for trans liberation, but for all people. In reading the book, I found, you take on a slight altering in language as...
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Episode 24 - Putting Ghosts in Their Graves (another letter with Caroline)
The Breakup Theory
In this episode, Caroline and I respond to a letter from a listener who is trying to navigate a tricky relationship. It is a relationship with a lot of fuzziness, moving from romantic and sexual to friends. There are also attempts at real conversation, though they aren’t always clear, producing a difficult dynamic to understand and find bearings. They know they need to end it—or at least take space from it—but they also are tied into the queer anarchist community in a small town that centers around this person’s house. As they say, they are trying to put the ghost back in its grave,...
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Episode 23 - Dean Spade on How We Act When Things Get Really Hard
The Breakup Theory
Today I’m sharing a conversation I had with one of my favorites, Dean Spade, about his recent book out with Algonquin Books. Dean has been an inspiration for a long time with his commitments to abolition, anti-Zionism, and trans liberation, among other things. His previous book, , came at a perfect moment when people were getting together in response to COVID-19 and the George Floyd Uprising. This new book has also appeared right when we need it, when we feel worn down and scared, and need to find better ways to connect with each other. His thinking here lines up very closely with the...
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Episode 22 - In Memoriam Joshua Clover, a Rerelease from The Final Straw Radio 2021
The Breakup Theory
Today I’m re-releasing a conversation I recorded for the Final Straw Radio with Joshua Clover in 2021. Our conversation focuses around his 2016 book Riot. Strike. Riot, in part within the context of the George Floyd rebellion. I wanted to present this conversation in memoriam of Joshua, who we learned last week had died. As many of the testimonials you can find online, Joshua was a great friend and comrade to a wide range of people. He is remembered not just as a poet and an academic thinker, but also as someone ready to throw down in the streets. I didn’t know him really beyond his work...
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Episode 21 - Breaking Up With Your Therapist w/ Shuli and Caroline
The Breakup Theory
In today’s episode, Caroline and I respond to a listener’s letter about breaking up with their psychoanalyst after five years. Right now, there is such an emphasis on therapy as a means to address trauma, as well as to adjust to the terror of the current conditions in the world. There is also a whole industry of self-help that coincides with shaming of people by individualizing their faults and failures. We may all need therapy to a certain extent—but when do we end it? Breaking up with a therapist is a kind of practice breakup: it’s a controlled environment where you can exercise your...
info_outlineIn this episode, Caroline and I talk to the wonderful Dr. Jaime M. Grant, Sex and Intimacy Coach, Researcher, Writer, and longtime Activist. She has recently published Kink for Dummies, after her previous contribution to the series, Polyamory for Dummies. (Yes, it’s that series!) Jaime has also written a book and been leading a workshop for many years around the world on mapping your desire, helping people get in touch with what they actually like and want and perhaps have not been able to access. Jaime has been involved in queer and racial justice movements for decades, as well as doing survivor support, research on trans discrimination and more. As you will hear, she is a passionate advocate and coach whose work really revolves around inspiring forms of connection through intimacy, relationship, and self-empowerment.
Talking with Jaime about kink, poly, and sex was extremely helpful to me for putting into perspective the role of queer sex and intimacy within struggle for liberation, autonomy, and the end of empire. I am always interested in the ways that our relationships reproduce the world around us, but I have sometimes wondered if sex as revolutionary is just a dream. (Perhaps I’ve taught too much Foucault). Our world is structured such that a process of self-discovery involves interrogating your sexuality and gender, so often getting caught up in the traps of identity that end up separating us or becoming modes of punishment. And even though we are told we have unique identities, we are still doing this work under social duress and shame, regardless of more expansive and visible queer communities, more attention to different ways of engaging in sex and relationship, and years of work that people like Jaime have done to support people in these discoveries. Polyamory plays a specific role within anarchist and anti-authoritarian perspectives as giving us ways to relate non-hierarchically, but as with queer love in general, can get caught up in should and should nots, or the miasma of endless processing.
Jaime brought a refreshing perspective, that really should be the first way we access these things. Her approach to creating space to discuss issues around sex and intimacy and to be frank about desire is supportive in a way that makes the possibility of naming the hidden and dark parts of you seem much easier. Listening to her wisdom and experience kind of gave me this feeling that things could actually be simpler, that this wisdom could be basic, and that we often make things too complicated. (Maybe that’s just me).
I am a theory girl always getting tangled up, so I was also grateful that Caroline brought her professional and personal experience into conversation with Jaime to help contextualize the challenges that people face when trying to create new supportive relationships with poly or kink dynamics.
I was genuinely moved by this conversation, not just because of Jaime’s kindness and passion, but by how clearly she was able to show the power of connection and relationship in changing the world—something I’m always thinking about but I can get pessimistic too. I hope you too find it inspiring to hear her practical perspective that helps simplify ways to open up or lives and even be kind to ourselves and the ones we love.
Jaime is accessible in many ways: You can find her at www.justsexpodcast.com, on instagram @jaimemgrant, on facebook J'aime Grant, or email jaimemgrant@gmail.com
Her books are out, and she is available for coaching!
If you want to access more of my work, as well as the work of the wonderful carla joy bergman, Dani Burlison, and Vicky Osterweil, you can sign up for our newsletter at https://cawshinythings.com. If you subscribe, you will also get access to all of our articles, our discord server where we have discussion, movie nights, writing workshops, and book clubs, and more. Our podcasts, advice column, and zine and sticker library are always free. I am proud of the thing that we are building together, creating a support system for the lonely and often impoverished work of writing—and also finding new ways to engage with new people committed to collective thinking and writing.
If you are interested, I will be leading a book club meeting on Emma Heaney’s collection, Feminism against Cisness on November 19 at 5pm eastern. You are invited to subscribe and join!
The Breakup Theory is a member of the Channel Zero Network of anarchist podcasts, which pulls together a wide variety of shows taking an anarchist perspective on culture, politics, actions, and more. Check them out at www.channelzeronetwork.com