Taboo Was Never the Problem. Let's go the the Edge.

Sex. Grief. Death. Power. Madness. The body.

These were never the problem. But somewhere along the way, they got labeled as dirty, dangerous, too much. Especially when expressed through women. Especially when embodied without apology.

We’ll talk vibrators and hysteria. Power and fear. What happens when grief has no place to go. And why kink, at its core, might just be one of the few places left where we get to reclaim what was ours all along.

If you’ve ever felt like you were too much, this one’s for you.
 Because you were never the problem.

You were the truth they didn’t know how to hold.

If you are interested in joining Doc YuRoc on the mic send her an email to yulindarenee@docyuroc.com with GUEST in the subject line and share what you wish to talk about and she will respond ASAP.

You can also find and follow her at:

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hey y'all, it's DocuRock and we are back at the edge of something. And today that something is the taboo. So I was just sitting here and I was thinking to myself, what makes the taboo, taboo? And y'all already know what happened. Your girl went down a goddamn rabbit hole to really understand, like, how do we get to this point where something is categorized as taboo? And you know what we going to do first, right? We're going to define the word. So what does taboo mean? What is it? It's etymology. Let's get into it. All right. So as a noun, taboo is defined as a social or cultural prohibition, something that is forbidden or disapproved of by custom, tradition, or morality, often without explicit legal sanctions. So this ain't the law. This is just some shit we done came up with that we're going to institute as a no-no all right cool then we have as an adjective taboo forbidden to be spoken of touched or engaged with usually due to social or spiritual beliefs of course they want to cut the grass while i'm recording because of course so if the sound sounds a little weird it's because i'm moving around but we still gonna make it do what it do so let's get into the etymology now so the word taboo comes from the tongan t-o-n-g-a I just want y'all to sit with that for a little bit. We're talking about the origin of the word. Y'all see how things get bastardized? I'm just saying. It was introduced to the English language in the late 18th century. By Captain James Cook during his voyages in the South Pacific. So initially, taboo didn't mean something was bad or immoral, quote unquote, but rather that it held spiritual potence or cultural significance. Y'all, I just got chills. What about you? So just like the word rogue, what did the fucking colonizers do? Okay, they colonize. Over time, particularly through Western colonialism, the term taboo was reframed through the lens of Christian morality, Victorian propriety, and social what? Control. Right. It lost much of its spiritual reverence and came to mean socially unacceptable or deviant. We'll talk about that too. I discussed that on a YouTube channel. We ain't gonna get into all that. I'll bring it here later on. But anyway, this shift is important because what was once sacred and powerful became stigmatized and silenced. Let's pause. Now that we've dug into the meaning of the word, because of course, let's all make sure we know what we're talking about when we talking. Let's shift gears and look at some of the more common taboos, if you will, in Western society. And first up, of course, sex. I am so fascinated by how the Western world interact or the relationship with sex. It's so odd because it is so used to commodify, to to, as a hook to sale and profit, but yet and still we can't have just a normal, regular conversation about sex is always sensationalized or typically, I won't say always. And my question is, I wonder if it wasn't taboo, if it would still be profitable. I'm just going to let that marinate for a minute, but I don't know. That could be a whole different conversation. We'll leave it at that. What I do know is that sex used to be a part of the spiritual fabric of life. You had temple priestesses, you had sacred sex rites, and eroticism was communal. It wasn't a rare thing. Sex was just a part of the fabric, right? It wasn't odd. It wasn't weird. It just was. And then sexual energy was seen as a life force, not something to be suppressed. You could create from your sexual energy because sex itself can beget creation. It connected the body to the divine. But the Western world, through puritanical lenses, disconnected sex from spirit and turned pleasure into something sinful. Like, what the hell? Where'd they do that at? And obviously all over the western world but anyway and let's keep it a buck it really fucked up the women right it hit the women the hardest because in many pre-colonial and indigenous cultures women were seen as the bearers of erotic power and spiritual insight because of the capacity to beget life their bodies were not sexualized but sacralized meaning it was considered sacred menstruation was honored and that's a whole different conversation itself how we deal with the menstrual cycle and just the different phases that women go through. Sensuality was celebrated. Female orgasm was seen as a connection to God. But colonization, again, always the motherfucking villain. Christianity right there on its toes. And patriarchy reframed women's sexuality as a threat. Something to be controlled, hidden, or used for someone else's gain. Right? Right? Yeah. Because forbid, God forbid that you are in control of your own sexuality, sensuality, and the power that is inherent within it. Yeah, heavy sigh. And on the other side of sex and the beginning of life, we have death and grief. Two other taboos that we grapple with in Western society. And again, I find it so obvious how something that is intrinsically a part of the life cycle that none of us can escape, as far as I know, death, that we are so afraid as a culture to talk about it, to lean into it. And I find that really interesting. So these two taboos are intimately connected, right? But in many indigenous and ancestral traditions, they were never meant to be separated. It makes sense that those two would go together. Grief was a ritual response to death. And death was not an end. It was a threshold. It was a passage to something else. And in many cultures, there were designated periods of mourning. Grief was held communally. The bereaved were supported, not avoided. And in my own personal life, I recognize after having experienced multiple deaths within a three year period that it is loudest. A few weeks to a few months after the death. Because everyone that rallied around you for those first couple of days or couple of weeks disappear. And then there's no more community. There's no more support. You're on your own. Because you have a time limit on how long you're allowed to grieve and receive support. See, back then when our ancestors were dealing with this, Grief was communal. The bereaved were supported, not avoided, like I said. And death was honored and it was spoken by name. We didn't avoid talking about it. We didn't call it something else. And ancestors weren't forgotten, right? Death wasn't the end. Ancestors were revered. When someone died, it was a celebration because now they were ancestors and they get to serve a different, more honorable, more sacred role. We can't even say the word death. We say someone passed away or they were lost. We lost them. They're not fucking lost. We know exactly where they are, right? So I'm curious as to where that started. I didn't dig into that. And then when we think about grief, right? For me personally, I did not even begin to grapple with the grieving process until two, three years ago. And mind you, I have... had multiple people die before then, but there was never the space to grieve. There was never the oxygen. the breath to do the grieving because I was conditioned that I had to make sure I was emotionally available for others, which means there was no room for my own personal grief, but I was the holder of others' grief. And to grieve for a lot of people is almost looked at as weakness, especially if it goes on too long, quote unquote. Now, who defines what too long is? I don't know. Grief is rushed. It's usually hidden. You're by yourself. You're crying in the bathroom. You're giving about three days off work when somebody dies for your bereavement time off. And if you're still crying a month later, a year later, five years later, people look at you like, what the hell is wrong with you? Get over it already. And if we're really, really honest, that shit hurts. It really hurts when people are looking at you like something is wrong with you because you are still experiencing pain. So then what happens? We suffer in silence. We alone. We ashamed of ourselves. We start to beat ourselves up. Why am I not over this yet? Grief becomes something to apologize for. Death becomes something to fear or to avoid mentioning. Less it creeps up on you because if you talk about death, That means yours must be right around the corner. Like, Lord have mercy. But avoiding death doesn't keep us safe. It just keeps us numb. And stifling the grief doesn't make it go away. It just gets buried deeper. It festers and it changes who we are. It's difficult to maintain your humanity when you are not allowed to be human. So to reclaim these particular taboos, It's to say grief is not a weakness. It's literally love in motion. Because if you grieve the loss of someone, that means you love them enough to do so. Death is not our enemy. It is a part of a sacred cycle. And both deserve to be honored, not to be feared. And there's not just the death of the body. There's so many different deaths. The death of a former self, the death of dreams unrealized, the death of unmet needs, unmet wants. And grief comes with all of those. We don't talk about the grieving process of healing. We don't talk about the grieving process of releasing attachment to things that no longer serve us. Even that is taboo. But only if we allow it to be. Next up, power. And when I was thinking about power, I asked myself, is power really taboo? Are people just afraid of power? Like what's really going on? And then I thought about it. Power is taboo when it's in the hands of those who are typically the ones others want to control. Did that land? Let's look at it like this. So back in the day in pre-colonial societies, power often flowed through communal leadership. It was more circular, right? It was about communal leadership, spiritual vision, and shared responsibility. Power wasn't about dominance. It was about alignment. It was the ability to influence the world while staying rooted in integrity. And back then, women had power. And we see how people are afraid of that. Women in power is taboo as hell, but anyway. But women once held that kind of power. Matrilineal societies was a thing. Spiritual leaders, wisdom keepers, birth workers, and community guides, all positions held by women. So power wasn't something women had to fight for, claw for, die for. It was given. It was lived. It was honored. It was respected. It was accepted. It just But here comes the Western patriarchy fucking stuff up like it does, where they build systems that erase feminine power. Women's knowledge was devalued. Their leadership was dismissed. Their power was seen as a threat that needed to be tamed. And this leads into another taboo, but we'll get there. So when I go back to my question of power really taboo, yes, depending on who holds that power. In and of itself, It's not inherently taboo, but who holds it, how they hold it, and what they do with that power. That's where the taboo begins. Power becomes taboo when it threatens the systems that rely on hierarchy, obedience, control, and status. Let's take a closer look. So, a white dude in a suit with power. That's expected, right? That's the blueprint, supposedly. Now, a black woman using her voice, commanding space. Ooh, we don't do that. That's taboo. The fuck you're doing. This able person demanding access. Taboo, because why are you making noise? Why are you making a nuisance of yourself, right? A queer person redefining leadership outside of the binary. Oh no, that's against God. You're fucking up. That's taboo. Or let's talk about a submissive and a kink dynamic who knows their worth. Or a dominant who refused to be manipulated by itself. Oh, shit. Now we're getting somewhere. Taboo. Why? Because it dares to buck up against systems that have been put in place to specifically use power to control. Because when power is rooted in authenticity, sovereignty, wholeness, purpose, guess what? You can't buy it. It can't be sold. You can't manipulate it. You can't control it. And if I can't control you, that means I can't rule over you. And then what does that do? That threatens my perceived power. And let's flip it a bit. People are also afraid of their own power. Stepping into your power is taboo because it might be scary for you to be authentically yourself. You might be afraid of your own power because what if you become like them other motherfuckers who use their power for evil? Will I be punished or cast out? What if I can't handle my power? What if my power disrupts my current circumstances and I'm left destitute, fucked up, outcast, or something else? So not only is power taboo based on who utilizes it, but it becomes taboo in our own life because we're afraid of what it can look like. True power triggers fear because it comes with responsibility. It asks us to be accountable and to be honest. And sometimes it comes with a lot of excuses because people want to avoid the responsibility. But true power... Comes with all of that. So is power taboo? Real power is. Not that fake-ish. People use fake power to manipulate others. Sometimes we see things on TV, social media, and we think, oh man, those people have power. What they actually have in most cases is a good performance. Real power cannot be scripted. It can only be lived And I'm going to leave that right there. Madness. Madness as a taboo. So what the Western world often labels as madness, other cultures have named as spiritual emergence. And for those who know me, you know that I dance at the threshold of science and woo, philosophy, psychology, all of those things. And I've even shared like a TikTok or Instagram reel of talking about how some of us in the mental health community know that some folks who have been diagnosed with the disorder were actually misdiagnosed and were dealing with or managing spiritual awakening. We don't talk about that much though. Anywho, because hearing voices could be the voice of ancestors. Visions might be medicine dreams. The person who's mad, quote unquote, might be training to become a healer or a shaman or even a prophet. But we medicalize everything over here in the Western world and we exile, cast out anything different. Anything that challenges our consensus of what reality really is. And it's so funny because if we think about how it relates to women in the histrionics, right? Women getting hysterical. Oh, they're mad. We need to give them a little opium. Give them a little something of that to calm them down so they're relaxed. Oh, speaking of, what were they called? Oh, I cannot remember. Hold on. Gotta go look it up real quick. Okay, y'all. Y'all gotta take this trip down this rabbit hole with me because this just made me think about women being diagnosed with hysteria, right? And using tools, quote unquote, like vibrators to help them with their disorder so okay let's let's take this little side trip so hysteria that word comes from the greek word hysteria hysteria i think i'm saying it right which means uterus and for centuries hysteria was a catch-all diagnosis for every damn thing anything a woman was dealing with that wasn't you chilling and you doing what the fuck i wanted you to do was hysteria so whether or not there was anxiety they were irritable They had insomnia. They were getting fat because they had fluid retention. So they're getting puffy, emotional excess, right? You're being emotional. All of that was categorized as hysteria. So the underlying assumption was that if a woman was discontent, she was ill. It wasn't that she was upset or frustrated or sad or, you know, repressed or bored. It was something wrong with her ass. Okay. And so the medical treatment, quote unquote, of hysteria. So by the 18th and 19th centuries male doctors in western europe and the u.s began using pelvic massage to induce paroxysm aka an orgasm as a treatment for hysteria but they didn't call it sexual oh because no we don't want to give them pleasure just for pleasure's sake it was medical right it was believed that this would release built up fluids and restore the woman's emotional balance this process was time consuming and physically demanding for doctors no surprise there right Right. Because, you know, sometimes women, we got to find it. And this led to the invention of mechanical vibrators in the late 1800s. Y'all. So these vibrators were used in clinical settings and even marketed for home use, often as respectable health devices for women's well-being. Oh. All right. So let's go back onto the yellow brick road, right? We took a detour, but the whole idea of madness being a taboo, right? That someone expressing themselves or experiencing things that are not in alignment, quote unquote, with what the powers that be consider to be normal, right? That if you were not operating in the role they wanted you to operate in the way they wanted you to operate in it, it was an issue. So if you were angry, if you were having flashbacks, maybe someone with PTSD, there was madness. And what it ultimately means is that you are not controllable. They, again, the powers that be, patriarchy or whatever. If I don't understand it, I can't control it. So I won't accept it. I will marginalize it and I will kick it to the corners. I will kick it to the margins. I will kick it to the edge. And that brings us to kink. Kink is often treated like the ultimate taboo. But when you understand the lineage of taboo as sacred, kink becomes something else entirely. It becomes like a return. Return to something that our ancestors were already involved in. It becomes sacred or it can become sacred. It can become a portal. It can become a threshold. It can become a ritual. Because kink often involves ritual. It has intention. It involves sensation, power exchange, presence, and consent. And it's not always erotic. It's not always sexual. Oftentimes, it's transformative. And in a lot of ways, kink mirrors the same principles found in ancient rites around boundaries, offerings, invocation, surrender, and even some times suffering. So to submit, to kneel, to yield, To allow, to feel, is not weakness. It is radical trust. And to dominate, which is to guide, to witness, to caretake, to hold, is not about cruelty. It can be profound responsibility. And kink, when practiced consciously, is ceremony. It can help us integrate when we're doing our shadow work. It can help us reclaim and rescript our relationships. to self and others. In a world that teaches us to abandon ourselves, kink brings us back to our bodies, to our needs, to our voices, to our wants. It helps us face our fears, or can. It's one of the few places where we can rewrite the scripts handed to us. It says, you are not broken. You are complex. And you get to craft things your own reality, your own terms. And sometimes it can be dangerous. There's a risk involved. And that, my love, sounds like the original definition of taboo. So with that, this was a little bit longer than I thought it would be. But the edge of taboo doesn't need to be something to fear. You can feel through it because on the other side of the shame that the world might have us feel because of how we move through space. On the other side of that is our own sovereignty. And on the other side of silence is truth. We speak truth to these taboos. I love it. I love the idea of the taboo, the original meaning behind it and us getting back to our roots. Because that's where the truth lies. That's where the richness is. That's where the nutrients are. And guess what? I think we're on the edge of it. This is DocuRock. I'm out.