Fatima Kamenge (She/Her), an Auntie, Human, and Joybonbon, is the founder of Social Ausum, a consulting firm based in Toronto, Canada that helps business owners build more socially responsible enterprises. What does this business consultant do in their spare time you ask? A sensuality workshop of course! Fatima is a true entrepreneur In this episode we talk about: Burundian Culture and Sex How Sex and Spirituality are always intertwined Sex and Community Sex and Belonging Sex with Self and the Sacred Orgasm My gratitude goes to Fatima who graciously shared her personal stories of growing up Burundian. You can find Fatima here: @thejoybonbon on IG Guest Opinion Disclaimer: All opinions expressed by podcast guests / participants are solely their current opinions and do not reflect the opinions of GETSOME Inc. or affiliates or the companies with which the podcast guests / participants are affiliated, and may have been previously disseminated by them. The guests / participants opinions are based upon information they consider reliable, but neither GETSOME Inc. nor its affiliates, nor the companies with which such guests / participants are affiliated, warrant its completeness or accuracy, and it should not be relied upon as such.
Fatima Kamenge (She/Her), an Auntie, Human, and Joybonbon, is the founder of Social Ausum, a consulting firm based in Toronto, Canada that helps business owners build more socially responsible enterprises. What does this business consultant do in their spare time you ask? A sensuality workshop of course! Fatima is a true entrepreneur
In this episode we talk about:
Burundian Culture and Sex
How Sex and Spirituality are always intertwined
Sex and Community
Sex and Belonging
Sex with Self and the Sacred Orgasm
My gratitude goes to Fatima who graciously shared her personal stories of growing up Burundian.
You can find Fatima here:
@thejoybonbon on IG
Guest Opinion Disclaimer: All opinions expressed by podcast guests / participants are solely their current opinions and do not reflect the opinions of GETSOME Inc. or affiliates or the companies with which the podcast guests / participants are affiliated, and may have been previously disseminated by them. The guests / participants opinions are based upon information they consider reliable, but neither GETSOME Inc. nor its affiliates, nor the companies with which such guests / participants are affiliated, warrant its completeness or accuracy, and it should not be relied upon as such.
[00:00:00] [Theme music]
[00:00:18] Michelle: I met my next guest at an organized cottage weekend where a mutual friend brought together some friends that she had that she thought really needed to meet each other. And was she ever right? Because when my next guest walked into the cottage, I was drawn to this very calm yet confident energy.
[00:00:46] Michelle: Once we sat down and started to get more comfortable, she engaged me or I engaged her, I can't remember, it's probably me, in the topic of sex. And through the night, we ended up by segueing into the topic of how culture can act as a lens to how we view ourselves and view others as sexual beings.
[00:01:13] Michelle: She talked about what it was like growing up in Burundi, which was really interesting to me because I had never met anybody from Burundi before and didn't know a whole lot about their culture. She talked about growing up in Burundi and just had some amazing stories to share about her, her family, her parents, her aunties.
[00:01:39] Michelle: We also got on the topic of sensuality and it turns out that Fatima also was running a sensuality workshop and how she teaches it to other people because it's one of those concepts that can sometimes be hard to get your head around. I loved every minute of it and I knew at some point our paths were going to cross again. I didn't have a podcast at the time, but here we are. Everyone, I cannot wait to introduce to you Fatima Kamenge.
[00:02:10] Michelle: Fatima is the founder of Social Ausum, which is a consulting firm that focuses on building more socially and environmentally responsible enterprises. Fatima is a true entrepreneur and I cannot wait for you to meet her. Enjoy.
[00:02:32] Fatima Kamenge: So I pulled some cards. I pull some every morning. And the ones that I pulled today, one was the devil. I've never pulled that card before. This is what it reads. Chained to your lusty desires, you have the ability to free yourself. Animal attraction. Things are getting dark. Obsessive codependency. Things can change. but only if you can take action to free yourself. The pitfalls of addiction, the shadow self is here.
[00:03:07] Fatima Kamenge: Raw sexuality. Don't let the forces of darkness overpower you. We can go from there.
[00:03:17] Michelle: Do not let the forces of darkness overpower you, Fatima. How are you feeling about being here today?
[00:03:25] Fatima Kamenge: I come from a very, very, very conservative and religious family. And whether I like it or not, I'm a bit of a prude at times, at least in public. So my private persona is not much of a prude. and I've relied on the fact that I don't have to be a prude in private to be exactly who I want to be. But this is a different realm.
[00:04:00] Fatima Kamenge: This is a public space. And there is an anticipation of fear around being public.
[00:04:16] Michelle: Yes.
[00:04:17] Fatima Kamenge: What I have been so free in. In private.
[00:04:29] Michelle: Thank you so much Fatima for saying that. And I will graciously move on from any question you don't feel comfortable answering. I met you at a mutual friend's cottage. we didn't know each other you had come in late maybe you were a day late actually because because you were doing a sensuality workshop
[00:05:04] Michelle: and when I heard that my ears perked up and we had conversations around that it was really cool and then we got into talking a bit about you and your story and what it was like growing up in Burundi, how you live your life now, living in Canada. And I remember asking you some questions around what was it like growing up there?
[00:05:41] Michelle: how do people think about sex and sexuality? And it was just like this really great day and night of hearing really cool stories that you had about you and your travels and your... family. And that's why I reached out to you. You have this combination of being open to
[00:06:14] Michelle: talking about sexuality and sensuality and also your travels that came after that.
[00:06:22] Michelle: You also have a private consultant company called Social Ausum where you work with business owners and look at how to make their company more socially responsible, including self-care, environmental impacts, and socially responsible investing. Yeah.
[00:06:52] Fatima Kamenge: Yes. I was just on a walk this morning with a friend and we were talking about how we are all 50% of every conversation or every interaction that we have. And I think the 50% that you bring is 45% sex.
[00:07:10] Michelle: Who, me?
[00:07:11] Fatima Kamenge: The other person might have maybe 5% sex becomes 30% sex when it comes to having a conversation with you, which is fun. And also because sex and sexuality and sensuality are things that many of us might do. And also, at least when it comes to me, and I will speak for myself, it's been a journey of healing, really. and in healing that was even unknown for most of the times
[00:07:45] Fatima Kamenge: is that I didn't know the hurt and the pieces that I needed to undo in order to build who I am as a person, as a sexual being and come to it, removing the shame, removing the guilt around it.
[00:08:05] Fatima Kamenge: And also reconciling what might have been the traditional Burundian ways of sex with the Christian current Burundian ways of sex. Because the current way in which Burundi lives its sexuality, and at least outwardly, is very much influenced by Christianity. and the Victorian, British ways of being,
[00:08:38] Fatima Kamenge: which is against my spirit and my ancestors' spirit because it doesn't... It's colonialism on the other side of things. So we can talk about colonialism and sex if you want and how...
[00:09:00] Fatima Kamenge: And how really I didn't have the vocabulary for it, but for as long as I've started growing as an adult and exploring what sexuality was for me, it's been a process of decolonializing myself and my sexual life.
[00:09:21] Michelle: When did you start to find that sexual part of yourself started to emerge? Was this something that even as a young person, you had this curiosity?
[00:09:42] Fatima Kamenge: so as a young person i got to explore i got to kiss girls boys touch each other in a way that was not charged at all in a way there was no charge to it i i didn't develop my curves which are very ample right now but i they didn't come until much later in my life so i was able to to live in this androgynous place where, unlike my cousins who were immediately told, you're a woman,
[00:10:15] Fatima Kamenge: go and that you're not to be seen with a man, you're not to be, that piece of protectionism that is really oppression that comes to girls young, didn't come to me because I was very tomboyish and androgynous in my body. So I got to make out with as many girls as I did boys. and I got to live that mostly because I was just flying under the radar and I flew under the radar because at 11 we left Burundi and lived in other African countries which
[00:10:47] Fatima Kamenge: meant that I might have looked like I like I was a local but I wasn't a local so none of the none of the usual societal pressures that are put on the local girls were put on me. I was a foreigner and thus I got to get away with a lot of things. So I got to get away with playing with the boys and playing with the girls a certain way. I was weird because they assumed, oh, it's because you're from a different culture.
[00:11:19] Fatima Kamenge: It was never ascribed to me as a person. And then at a certain time, I think maybe 16, 15, I continued doing so. I went to international schools. So it was fairly liberal. I was in a fairly, very liberal bubble.
[00:11:42] Michelle: Yeah.
[00:11:42] Fatima Kamenge: And my parents were working a lot and traveling a lot. So I was in a liberal bubble, kind of unsupervised with lots of access. which is great, but has its own issues when it comes to that. and then I came to Canada.
[00:12:04] Michelle: At what age?
[00:12:06] Fatima Kamenge: I think I was going to turn 18 that year in the fall. So I was 17, and I was turning 18. And, Michelle, I had been free-flowing. I don't remember not having a boyfriend and a girlfriend at the same time. I was just, I'd be physical with everyone and intimate.
[00:12:31] Michelle: And was there any part of yourself while you were doing that, given that you would have grown up in a culture, a Christian culture where same-sex relationships are...
[00:12:46] Fatima Kamenge: It's illegal.
[00:12:47] Michelle: Like, illegal.
[00:12:48] Fatima Kamenge: in Burundi though Burundi is also the same place that at some point passed a law and I don't think it's still the same where a man and a woman who are not married are not or siblings are not allowed to be at a bar together same Burundi right like it's the it's not just the same sex aspect of things it's the it's the policing of sex in general it is not just the policing of the kind
[00:13:16] Fatima Kamenge: of sex you get to have it's you the policing of all the sex that anybody gets to have i was and that's the unique thing about me i was liminal i would go to burundi just on vacation um i remember once making out with a boy going back to the club i was in a club um and maybe i was like 18 or 19 at a time and coming back out making out with a girl coming back in and coming back and making
[00:13:46] Fatima Kamenge: out with a different boy and a policeman arresting us for public indecency and his argument was it i'm just confused this you've you come out with a different person each time and i was 18 and making out with people.
[00:14:09] Michelle: And he arrested you because he was confused.
[00:14:12] Fatima Kamenge: He wanted to arrest us for public indecency, but really he wanted a bribe. And he was also really confused as to what was going on with me. Because I was clearly not a sex worker. Yeah. And I was yet doing something that in his mind, a woman would only do such,
[00:14:42] Fatima Kamenge: like a woman is not allowed to have, to do that. If he had been a man coming out with multiple partners, a different part, it would make sense. But a woman cannot possibly make out with three different people in one night. unless she's a sex worker right and then that that's a necessity and something that she does because she has to do it so the idea that a woman has desires and that they can be mercurial and
[00:15:15] Fatima Kamenge: and varied was so confused to him so confusing to him that he was like i like i want money of course, but really, what the hell are you? What kind of unique animal are you?
[00:15:31] Michelle: And, and then does that at some point make it confusing for you?
[00:15:40] Fatima Kamenge: Oh yeah. So the first confusion was in Canada when i got here suddenly everybody asked me what my labels were again i had been living in this beautiful liminal place where nobody ever asked me to label myself or ever questioned who i was because they just assumed that was weird and weird is something you don't question weird is something that you just see and accept for
[00:16:13] Fatima Kamenge: what it is as long as it doesn't bother you and because that's the world i had lived in i had assume that that's the way the world works right i come to canada which is the place where everything is technically well known and alive and it's the place where i was asked to label myself are you are you gay are you straight are you bisexual is bisexual and this was in 2004
[00:16:46] Fatima Kamenge: the biphobia that exists like we hadn't even started really talking in the mainstream about two-spirit people about about being attracted to the people's spirit as opposed to um to a specific thing that they have on their body um yeah there were so many conversations i
[00:17:14] Fatima Kamenge: I had yet to be privy to that were not in the mainstream and that were not in a space that was accessible to me that I think would have been used so useful for me at the time. But I came in and it was very much, what are you? And I was like, and it wasn't, it wasn't a question of what are you? Tell us who you are. It's like, here are the boxes. Now take one. I was like there are boxes what are boxes
[00:17:46] Fatima Kamenge: yeah um so yeah it's very very confused
[00:17:53] Michelle: yeah that must have been really confusing in Burundi And my understanding is that within families, you don't typically share the last name.
[00:18:09] Fatima Kamenge: No.
[00:18:10] Michelle: And that you can choose to be part of that family when you grow up. But the reason that they give you that individual identity is so that your life isn't necessarily connected to the family if you don't want it to be.
[00:18:39] Fatima Kamenge: That has changed and we're very social. Like we will live and die by our social connections. whose family you're part of is what gives you access to everything and anything that you need it's still it's still a very a very and it's it's the same in many african places it's like who which family you belong to has a lot of that but yes that piece that unique piece of like you get to have your own name
[00:19:14] Fatima Kamenge: it's also a very small country so it's not like you can really hide which family you're from even though you have a different last name um like but the moment that you're outside of a context that knows you and knows you personally you can reinvent yourself and that is an option that is there which very few people take advantage of because there are so many advantages of belonging to the family that you usually belong to um and we're very
[00:19:43] Fatima Kamenge: yeah family ties are everything to us we're very social we community is everything we don't necessarily define ourselves as individual we define ourselves as as a tribe as a community as a family before anything and that's part of that identity like the thing of like what are you when I came to Canada, for me, it's like, what am I? Like the things that I would say what I am.
[00:20:17] Fatima Kamenge: I never had to say I was Black. I grew up in Africa. So that wasn't part of an identity that I ever had to [unclear], do anything with. I never had to say I was queer because queerness is what is and I didn't need to say that. The thing that I would always have to identify myself as, or the thing that I identified myself as the most, at least within my family, was my tribe.
[00:20:54] Fatima Kamenge: And the kind of personality traits that come. with like the women of my tribe and how we're known as being hard-headed and but bosses and we get shit done and we're like and and we are yeah like all of that like the pro the identity piece for me was very much oh you mean my tribe like the character traits like how i'm going to show up in the world it's like no tell us tell us
[00:21:27] Fatima Kamenge: which genitals you would like on your face and i'm like all of them when it came to sex and identity for me and i'm still a little bit confused about that and then um i have chosen queer mostly because it is the one that is most catch-all
[00:21:55] Fatima Kamenge: and yeah so with that at 17 18 what happened was this blossoming thing that was happening around sexuality suddenly got slapped with shame and that was it wasn't a foreign concept I had seen it peripherally, but it hadn't applied to me yet. And suddenly in Canada, there was this piece of, you should be,
[00:22:31] Fatima Kamenge: this place where it's supposed to be all open was the place for me where suddenly there was shame attached to sexuality.
[00:22:41] Michelle: And the, and the shame being that you didn't feel like you fit
[00:22:48] Fatima Kamenge: Yeah.
[00:22:49] Michelle: into the categories that were
[00:22:51] Fatima Kamenge: being yeah it was oh and and the what it did to me in that moment was get me to to hide because there were too many boxes that i ticked all the boxes in the moment that are not a new box appeared I would take that one too so because the boxes I was like oh I can't let anybody know that I take all the boxes or I will never be allowed I was also like a young woman new in a
[00:23:24] Fatima Kamenge: country with no relationships and all not none of that and I have mentioned the reason why I had to talk about how family is important belonging and being a part of family had to be everything to me and suddenly there was this you come here and you have to create family for yourself and family comes together based on again those characteristics that make you who you are and if I take all the boxes I fit nowhere
[00:24:02] Fatima Kamenge: yeah um so with sex with sex and sexuality and that's the thing is like your sexuality and how you go in the world and live your sex decides what kind of friends you make it builds the community that you're around it especially when you're 18 that's all you're thinking about really like let's face it you're 18 you're thinking about sex you're you're either having it not having it figuring out how to not
[00:24:37] Fatima Kamenge: have it or how to have it or who to have it with who not to have it with and and and there's no space for you to figure out what you like or don't like it's space of like what is the thing that's going to make me most, going to give me belonging the most.
[00:24:58] Michelle: Yeah.
[00:24:59] Fatima Kamenge: And I think at the time, the choice was so based on where can I belong, that it wasn't necessarily based on who am I.
[00:25:14] Michelle: Who am I? What do I want?
[00:25:20] Fatima Kamenge: and is it okay that that changes over time?
[00:25:27] Michelle: Yeah, do I have to commit to this category?
[00:25:31] Fatima Kamenge: It felt like you choose one, you get it, that's it, you're given it, they put a tattoo on you, and that's the thing that you get. And because I didn't have the mentorship or the eldership or the thing that didn't really exist for me at the time, I had no idea that there was a whole world of just be yourself and you'll figure it out.
[00:26:01] Fatima Kamenge: Because it was also at the same time I had to figure out what am I even studying? I'm 18. I'm supposed to figure out what I'm doing for the rest of my life, who I'm going to have sex with for the rest of my life. It's all the things at once. And there are all these options.
[00:26:22] Michelle: Yeah.
[00:26:23] Fatima Kamenge: But all these options also close so many doors. And I just was like, I don't want to close doors. I want to open up and see what happens. So when it came to my sex life...
[00:26:38] Michelle: Did it change the people that you were choosing to have sex with at that time where you started to feel a lot of shame because you didn't feel like you necessarily fit in one of those categories? Were the people that you're choosing different than, say, the people that you were choosing when you started to figure out that it doesn't actually matter what fucking category?
[00:27:14] Michelle: It's actually, well, what is it that I want?
[00:27:20] Fatima Kamenge: So because I grew up, so we left Burundi when I was 11. and when I came to Canada I came alone so my family was back I think at a time they were still in Zimbabwe and uh and Congo there was also a desire to suddenly feel like I want to be to belong and I didn't feel Burundian enough and I didn't feel anything I wasn't
[00:27:51] Fatima Kamenge: Canadian I wasn't Burundian I wasn't a thing so there was also part of sexuality was oh I should date Burundians now so that I can be more Burundian um and like until later where I finally had my first Burundian girlfriend um I wasn't finding queerness in the the expat Burundian community that I found in Toronto. So it was very hetero.
[00:28:24] Fatima Kamenge: So I started dating Burundian men and they had weird sex things.
[00:28:31] Michelle: What do you mean?
[00:28:33] Fatima Kamenge: They were so boring. At least the ones that I was dating. They were so straight-laced and unexciting, exciting which had not by the way been my experience from talking to my cousins and things of the sort where the pleasure of the woman was like why else would you have sex if there's no pleasure um and then that's when I realized that the group family I grew up in was unique apparently
[00:29:08] Fatima Kamenge: um I was taught with my cousins that sex is pleasurable that it's beautiful that it's fantastic that of course you should scream at the top of your lungs of pleasure if that is what you want to do that orgasms are delicious and fantastic and great as long as you have them with partners but the particular boys that i found in toronto were boys who would say things like you like sex as if it was a surprise yes
[00:29:44] Fatima Kamenge: so then i came to to discover through sex that there was a part of burundi a big part of burundi that i didn't know because i had been cocooned and been in this bubble of people who are don't shame about sex. Yeah. In my family, that actually the larger society was very much around you're supposed to be a good girl shouldn't enjoy sex.
[00:30:17] Fatima Kamenge: A good girl should be a tool for the pleasure of man because that's what a good girl is. And obviously I was a girl of loose morals. since I seemed to enjoy sex.
[00:30:34] Michelle: It's amazing, though, that you had that experience as a young person growing up where you were able to develop that confidence.
[00:30:44] Fatima Kamenge: I did, but those experiences made me turn around. So when you originally ask a question of, like, when did you or did you always feel, well, I have a place that I, a time of my life that I call the dark ages where because I wanted to belong, I pretty much turned off the sexual aspect of me because it was so shame then.
[00:31:17] Fatima Kamenge: And also because I had absolutely almost blissfully ignored or like being delusional enough to not notice any of that up to that point. When it came, it was such a shock. And it was at such a point where I was looking for myself and looking for myself in other people, which is what you're doing when you're in your teens, that what the message that came through was you need to be a different person and you can't be exploring and continuing to be so open
[00:31:52] Fatima Kamenge: with your body, with who you are, if you want to be a Burundian girl. Eventually, I gave that up and learned that being a Burundian girl doesn't have to mean anything else than what it means to me. But that was a whole other aspect that was also, by the way, done through sex. And it's so interesting because we can tell our story, our life story through any kind of lens. We can tell it through our work.
[00:32:26] Fatima Kamenge: We can tell it through the relationship with our family. We can tell it through the relationship with our hair, with where we lived. but the story of me through sex and sensuality and getting to a point where now I am open and continuously learning what my body wants, what it needs, what it doesn't like, what it's very
[00:33:00] Fatima Kamenge: curious about, what it's not curious about, and being just okay with the fact that that is that.
[00:33:08] Michelle: What opened you up to that?
[00:33:11] Fatima Kamenge: Oh, what opened me up to that?
[00:33:13] Michelle: Yeah, like, how did you step out of the dark ages? That's what you called it, right?
[00:33:20] Fatima Kamenge: Yes.
[00:33:20] Michelle: What was it? And I don't know if it was just this moment or a period of time that you decided to shift and start to focus more about what feels good for you, what it is that you want, how you feel like you're living your life more authentically.
[00:33:43] Fatima Kamenge: I think it wasn't a it's not a it's not a story of butterfly and sunshines it was a proper mental breakdown when because with with shame and guilt and all that stuff when when I had nothing left to to hold on to like you know because shame only works when there's something that you have to
[00:34:12] Fatima Kamenge: hide when you have pride to hold on to that's only that's the only time where actually shame works um where none of that were there there was an opportunity this that's the thing when you lose everything there's an opportunity for a blank slate yeah and through the process of healing and then going to therapy, one of the things that I was given as homework was to make a happy list.
[00:34:47] Fatima Kamenge: And I love my happy list. And one of the things that I remembered was like, I love the sensuality of everything. Because I was looking at my happy list and everything just is like the sensuality of an intimate conversation, the sensuality of the taste of coffee in the morning and by the way like this is another thing that I've started doing lately is I love my coffee black and I realized that I the first thing that I would have in my mouth was bitterness so now I've switched it around I have a little
[00:35:22] Fatima Kamenge: bit of honey and milk in my mouth before I have coffee.
[00:35:27] Michelle: I love that.
[00:35:29] Fatima Kamenge: It, it changes the whole experience right and it's kind of like sex is sort of the same thing it's like adding colors
[00:35:38] Michelle: I love that.
[00:35:40] Fatima Kamenge: It was, it was part of healing from depression. It was adding colour into my life and remembering that the way orgasm feels for me it's just I feel it in the tip of my hairs and the tip of my nails in places that usually don't they don't have nerve endings but I feel it Mm-hmm. And I was like, oh, if that's not joy, what is?
[00:36:06] Michelle: I don't think there is another better feeling that you can give yourself. Like it feels like such a gift.
[00:36:15] Fatima Kamenge: And then also sitting with, because I had like with depression, I had broken with spirituality. I had broken with everything, everything. So there was a space of like, what does spirituality mean to me? What does prayer feel like to me? And I was like, when do I feel the most connected to everything, which is my version of spirituality? And to me, that was orgasms.
[00:36:38] Michelle: Wow.
[00:36:38] Fatima Kamenge: It's like, wait, is orgasm a prayer? And I was like, well, I must pray every day. And being okay with saying things like, orgasm is prayer for me. Yeah. And what it takes and the connection, the intimacy, the connection to spirit. And then, yeah, sex has become a spiritual endeavor.
[00:37:13] Fatima Kamenge: it's it's uh whereas before i was just doing it for doing it now yeah yeah it's it's like you know there's an altar that you put for it it is intentional it is it doesn't look like anything like what I thought sex looked like before. Now sex is whatever it is in that moment. And sometimes it's just an intense hour of just touching each other's heads.
[00:37:51] Fatima Kamenge: And I'm also the kind of person that can orgasm when just based on someone telling me to do so.
[00:38:01] Michelle: okay hold on a second wait okay I just need to understand this for a second yeah for you it sounds like when somebody tells you to orgasm, it's already, I imagine it to be already part of a very sensual experience, right?
[00:38:32] Michelle: Where it's probably, I imagine like the arousal is building, the desire is building and that a way of saying it just adds to.
[00:38:49] Fatima Kamenge: It, it, yeah, it is. It hits the spot.
[00:38:55] Michelle: Yeah.
[00:38:56] Fatima Kamenge: It hits the spot and it is. Um, yeah, I think now my, my sex life is transcended the physical for me. Um, it is, it, it is, yeah, it's, it's in everything. It's in everything. Yeah.
[00:39:22] Michelle: It's intellectual too, right?
[00:39:25] Fatima Kamenge: It is, yes, like there's a physical aspect to it. But it's also in relationship. It's an art. It's an art making. Like when I make art with someone or just work with someone or do something with someone, it's in relationship. It's in relationship with others, with myself as well. and and and it's within that relationship that the pleasure is that the the orgasm
[00:39:58] Fatima Kamenge: which is for me elevated into something that can be continuous and you know like you I'm sure you've had one of those conversations that makes you feel like makes you feel an orgasm. And sometimes, yeah, there have been moments where, for example, I'm in a circle of sisters and we're bringing in energy together, which is all the things that now I do.
[00:40:31] Fatima Kamenge: And this moon ceremony and we're going around and we're ululating and vocalizing and suddenly I'm coming And I'm like, why am I coming when all I'm doing is standing on the stand, just holding hands with other people? And I'm like, okay, I'm just getting orgasms. And they're physical.
[00:40:52] Michelle: That is amazing.
[00:40:55] Fatima Kamenge: I am orgasming. And as I stand there, and nobody has touched any bits of me in that way besides my hands. but that experience and that connection, that spiritual connection. So I'm in a wonderful place right now where the connection to spirit is also a connection that brings me orgasm, which by the way is to me the most like Catholic thing ever
[00:41:28] Fatima Kamenge: because you know how like nuns were said to transcend everything and just be in bliss. And I'm like, I get it now. They were just getting orgasms from Jesus. It's cool.
[00:41:48] Michelle: I'll try to work on that conceptualization.
[00:41:52] Fatima Kamenge: Just go to Jesus. Jesus will give you all your orgasms.
[00:41:56] Michelle: the nuns that I dealt with when I was younger They did not seem like they were having orgasms every day.
[00:42:06] Fatima Kamenge: That's the problem. They had limited their religious experiences to things that are of the flesh in so many ways. Had they tapped in a little deeper, they would have gotten orgasms from Jesus. That's all I'm saying.
[00:42:26] Michelle: I love it.
[00:42:28] Fatima Kamenge: getting to
[00:42:29] Michelle: I love it
[00:42:31] Fatima Kamenge: getting to no longer separate sensuality from my life and yes I have all these front facing identities and I show up in different spaces as a coach as a mentor, as a business strategist as a facilitator and I'm a holder and maker of space and if I didn't show up in all my sensual self
[00:43:03] Fatima Kamenge: the spaces that I would make would not be as rich so sex is in everything and you know sensuality is in everything that I do and everywhere that I show up. And I live in a very, very, very curvy body
[00:43:35] Fatima Kamenge: that can't even pretend to not be what it is, which comes with its own things. But, yeah. I have just learned lately too through healing from depression to embrace all the things that have always been there
[00:44:00] Fatima Kamenge: but however with a bit more maturity now and intention and gentleness
[00:44:12] Michelle: um yeah do you find that the people that you are around now the people who are in your circle your friends would you say that they are quite similar to you in that do you have people that you can share this, I think, relationship that you have?
[00:44:34] Fatima Kamenge: I was talking about, um, the fact that we are 50% of each interaction because this is what I show up with. That's the piece that people attach to. That's the point that we start. It's the place of spirit, of joy, of love, of connection, of sensuality. of intimacy whether it be during a very deep strategic meeting or a conversation on the
[00:45:08] Fatima Kamenge: back on a park or a love making session with one of my lovers it's all based in the in me showing up fully as i am and with the invitation of where are we going with this i don't know let's figure it out
[00:45:31] Michelle: I could talk to you forever and there's so many things that I want. Like I could like do three shows on your different sexual experiences that you've had or like when you're dancing with all these women and you're having that experience just to learn about what that is that I feel like we could just talk about this stuff forever. Thank you so much for being here, Fatima.
[00:45:58] Fatima Kamenge: Thank you so much.
[00:46:00] Michelle: Where can people find you?
[00:46:04] Fatima Kamenge: okay so i have a an instagram that i put little things on called the joy bonbon um i also run an organization called Social Ausum spelled social like social and awesome A-U-S-U-M and I make spaces. I make spaces where people get to come and be brave together and build I also build kick-ass revenue models that are impactful.
[00:46:37] Michelle: Amazing. Okay.
[00:46:39] Fatima Kamenge: And everything that I do is from love and joy.
[00:46:42] Michelle: I'm going to follow you on Instagram as soon as we get off. Thank you so much, Fatima. It was such a pleasure. if you have a question a confession or an inspirational story send me an email to the confession booth at michelle@getsome.ca and you just might hear it on the air i hope you enjoyed GETSOME if you'd like to listen to more episodes subscribe to wherever
[00:47:11] Michelle: you like to listen to podcasts and until then be kind to yourself be curious and when you're ready your sexual journey will unfold.