In this episode of The Discomfort Practice, Betsy is joined by Katherine Wela Bogen - scholar, activist, storyteller, and self-described "joyful little freak" - for a conversation that refuses to stay in its lane (in the best possible way). Katie, as she's known to her friends, is a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology researching the intersections of bisexual identity, sexual trauma, sexual functioning, and kink. She has published more than 30 peer-reviewed papers, hosts the political podcast Superhumanizer, and has just released her debut novel Queering Him - the first in the Avra and Kiran trilogy.

They talk about the particular loneliness of being a multi-hyphenate; the tension of being a storyteller who is also a rigorous scientist and a justice activist; growing up queer and Jewish in rural Connecticut; the grassroots, intergenerational nature of rural queer organizing; purity culture in activist spaces (yes, that purity culture); and why the internet may be doing something genuinely sick to our capacity for human connection. Oh, and they coin a new term: queer-narc. You're welcome.

This is a rich, wide-ranging, deeply honest conversation about sovereignty, disruption, and what it means to hold a fully realized identity in a world that keeps trying to flatten you.

• The tension of being a scholar-activist-storyteller, and why each community will always think you're betraying the others

• How the skills we sharpen to keep ourselves safe become our superpowers

• Signing a "closeting contract" at boarding school, and what that taught Katie about using intellectual excellence as a shield

• Growing up queer and Jewish in a majority-Christian rural Connecticut town, and the casual antisemitism that surrounded her Holocaust-survivor grandfather

• How rural queer activism works - whisper networks, safe parents, rainbow sidewalks painted in the dark, and the teachers whose doors you know are open

• Activist perfectionism and online purity culture: "Why are you being such a cop?"

• Impact vs intent, and why a well-meaning neighbour is not your enemy

• Katie's debut novel Queering Him: two flawed, bisexual adolescents asking the hard questions about desire, kink, fetishization, and queerness, and why readers who want to cancel fictional teenagers might want to look inward

• What the kink community models about accountability, community repair, and anti-carceral approaches to harm

• COVID, the digital age, and what we've lost by moving so much of human life onto a screen

• Final thought: Don't let the internet take your humanity from you.

Katherine Wela Bogen (she/her) is a bisexual, Jewish scholar-activist and storyteller whose work sits at the intersections of consent, kink, pleasure politics, and self-advocacy. She is currently completing her doctoral degree in clinical psychology (NIH-funded research on bisexual identity, sexual trauma, sexual functioning, and kink). She has published more than 30 peer-reviewed papers and hosts the political podcast Superhumanizer. Her public-facing platform is k.w.bogen, where she reaches over 500,000 followers with millions of monthly views. Her debut novel Queering Him - the first in the Avra and Kiran trilogy - is out now. Books two and three follow in January 2027 and January 2028 respectively, with two spin-off novels to follow.

Find Katie:

• Instagram / social: @k.w.bogen

• Podcast: Superhumanizer

• Novel: Queering Him (Avra and Kiran trilogy, Book 1) - available wherever books are sold

• Queering Him by Katherine Wela Bogen (Avra and Kiran trilogy, Book 1)

• Podcast: Superhumanizer

• Katie mentioned sharing academic articles on queer rurality in shownotes; check her social platforms for those links

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