UnBoxed wants you to take control of your narrative in the face of society’s stigmas

Wes Warner and Ace Torrez aren’t here to solve your problems, but they will make space for you at their table. 

The two founded UnBoxed, a nonprofit with a mission to normalize taboo and stigmatized topics. Their initiatives include educational programming, community engagement, and sexual health education.

Warner is a prevention specialist at KC Care Health Center, and his work falls under a grant for education and risk reduction for white-men-who-have-sex-with-men. In April 2020, he began a project to increase the initiative’s social media presence.

Self-admittedly, he operates better with someone else, so he brought Torrez in to help. The two had worked together at Woody’s in Midtown, where they teased the idea of taking their witty comebacks and good rapport to YouTube.

“I was like, ‘Hey, I have to do this show for work, where, you know, we’re going to be talking about, like, sex and taboo stuff. Would you be interested?’” Warner says. “Ace’s catchphrase is, ‘That’s wild,’ and he was like, ‘That’s wild. I’m in. Let’s do it.’”

What the two thought would be a short-term pandemic project evolved into something with a longer timeline. About six months into live-streaming and recording conversations, they realized that maybe this was bigger than its original intention.

“It really catapulted us into, like, what can we do with this to have a larger impact, and what are we really trying to do? And that spurred the creation of UnBoxed as a nonprofit as it is now,” Warner says.

Realizing how much the scope of the project had grown, Warner and Torrez decided—with the support of KC Care—to make UnBoxed its own nonprofit entity. They took a break from creating content to focus on how to make it a community-led approach.

To bring in more voices, they structured the organization into a community, engagement, and communications committee. 

“It’s really important that we didn’t just do this on a whim. We really spent some time trying to decide how we can engage with our community and have an impact, because the subjects that we cover aren’t everyday conversations, but they could be,” Warner says.  

UnBoxed has featured educational conversations around safe sex, HIV/AIDS, addiction, houselessness, sexual assault, racial justice, and mystic readings and recently launched a podcast—the first episode titled “One condom for every penis.” 

“We wanted to say that, you know, we’re very sex-positive people. There’s nothing wrong with your kinks, your fetishes. And if you’re not talking to that with your friends, you’re probably not talking to that with your healthcare practitioner, and that can be very limiting in the treatment that you get for illnesses that you may have,” Torrez says. 

Torrez hopes that these conversations will help people see their sexual health in the same scope as other areas of physical and mental health.

“What about your sexual health? What about having herpes? What about having some kind of STI [sexually transmitted infection]? What about having some complications to fisting? You know, things like that. Those are still part of your health and they shouldn’t be hidden or shamed because it’s not normalized amongst everyone else. It’s stopping you from being your most authentic self, from living your best life, and from seeking and getting treatment that you need,” Torrez says. “To talk about them is really a small step into setting healthy boundaries, and knowing your body, and being comfortable with those things.”

While early conversations focused on LGBTQ+ experiences, the UnBoxed narrative has expanded over the past two years.

“It’s really important to know that we’re not a queer organization. We are queer supporting and queer affirming, but the topics that we cover and the narratives that we elevate are about marginalized individuals.” Warner says. “It’s really important to show the commonalities that we share. It goes back to the root of humanity in sharing our stories, telling each other’s stories, and hearing the other person. And we’re going back to that state.”

UnBoxed doesn’t set out to provide solutions or act as a proxy for therapists or health care professionals. They want to create a safe, inclusive, and intersectional space where people feel comfortable asking questions, approaching issues that are difficult to talk about, and elevating different perspectives.

“All we’re trying to do is unbox some things for you, and what you decide to do with them when they’re all lying in front of you, is up to you,” Torrez says. “We’re not there to solve your problems. Or give you a solution. We’re just there for you to figure out some shit in your life and let you know that you may not have space with your partner, or at work, or with your family—but we’ll give you that space.”

The two try to create an environment where their guests share control of the conversations through transparency and respect. There is a level of vulnerability and trust at the foundation of each conversation and an understanding that no one has all the answers.

“There’s a facet of sharing—whether you’re on camera with a friend, or a therapist, or a family member—that you inherently have to be vulnerable, and that vulnerability has taught me that that’s where true healing comes from. That’s where true growth comes from,” Torrez says. “That’s where you can really have a moment where you have an opportunity to move forward, an opportunity to grow, an opportunity to thrive, an opportunity to really set your intentions for what you really want.” 

The pandemic amplified everyone’s vulnerabilities through the collective introspection of dealing with great change and processing loss. Torrez lost his father at the beginning of 2020, and he said that filming the show during that time helped him navigate his grief.

“You know, at the very beginning, especially for me, it helped me process and unbox a lot of things,” Warner says. “There were so many things that we were dealing with as humans, and I think it was really important for all of us to sit down and maybe have those conversations.”

During an episode discussing queer community in the Catholic church, Warner had to navigate his own beliefs about spirituality and religion.

“I’m not the end all be all. I don’t know everything. And I have to remove my bias that I have so that we can actually engage in a conversation that promotes growth and understanding,” Warner says. “You know, I don’t support the oppressive nature that religion may play, but that’s an individual’s take on the religion and how they influence or try to influence the world around them. And I thought the way that [the guest was] approaching religion as a community builder—as a space for individuals to come together and feel safe—that is powerful.”

Internet culture has created a reactionary landscape, where quick, abrasive responses are common. UnBoxed shows alternatives to toxic, dead-end online interactions by modeling how to talk about experiences and ideas without pressure or judgment.

“Our questions aren’t meant to trap you. They’re meant to expand our awareness. We just provide an opportunity for someone to see that taking place, and then they can shape it how they see fit within their world,” Warner says. “We’re just trying to create space to share information. And what they do with that information, you know, is on that individual. We just ask you to think about the impact of choices that you make and the role that plays in a larger community overall. Because it does impact all of us at some point.”

It’s clear how focused Warner and Torrez are on community building. While a large part of the UnBoxed mission revolves around these conversations, the team also organizes events to connect with people. Currently, they have teams playing in the Stonewall Sports kickball league, which they say is a fun way to build bridges and champion each other.

They also host unDressed, a series of intimate, clothing-optional sip and paint storytelling events where they partner with local creatives to facilitate an immersive live extension of their virtual programming. All of their initiatives tie into creating community bonds.

“I really think that UnBoxed truly came out of the huge disconnect that 2020 and Covid brought us. It was a really big opportunity for the world to re-find that connection to each other,” Torrez says. “We need hugs. We need to see each other’s eyes. We need to laugh together. We need to experience things.”

Now that UnBoxed has taken shape as a nonprofit, Warner hopes to see a future where the organization expands to meet the needs of intersecting communities, but for now, they will focus on creating a space where people can know they aren’t alone in whatever it is that they’re going through.

“I just want to be the person that I really, really needed when I was younger,” Torrez says. “There were a lot of hurdles that I had to overcome internally and personally, whether it was physically, being queer, being Hispanic—you know, all of the intersectionalities of my life. If I would have had an adult there—someone there to champion with me and let me know that it’s okay not to know all the answers, it’s okay to be sad, it’s okay to be upset, and it’s okay to be lost but also be like, ‘Today was such a win, and you fucking killed it at this kickball game.’ Or like, ‘Congratulations on graduating or getting accepted to school.’ Or, ‘Congratulations for doing whatever you did today’—it’s just having that there. And I think finding that connection between people is important.”