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Maria Pasadas, a young psychologist from La Linea, is having great success on YouTube with her series ‘Leaping without a net’ (Salto sin Red), in which love, in all its forms, is the subject.
According to the Real Academia Española (Spanish Royal Academy) love is an intense feeling which, results from a sense of insufficiency that creates a need which makes us search for a meeting and then union with another human being. Its second definition describes it as feelings towards another person for whom we have a natural attraction and who, seeks reciprocity in a desire for union, fulfils us, makes us happy and motivates us to live, communicate and to be creative.
Both these definitions are inadequate for those who experience and understand love in other ways. Such is the case of Maria Pasadas, the young psychologist from La Linea, with her thousands of followers on the YouTube web series “Leap without a net”, which is about to reach 150,000 views.
It is a web series on loving relationships. The first two seasons were filmed in Granada, where Maria lives, and a third series which begins recording this January, will be set in Madrid and in her own city of La Linea, where she wants to film a subplot. “I’d like very much for La Linea to be represented without talk of drug smuggling and dodgy things. La Linea is much more than all that”, she points out.
In addition the first two seasons will also be seen in English.
Maria Posadas has turned her own personal experiences into a vocation. “I was motivated to study psychology to help others, so people could be like me, without fear. I’ve experienced the fear of not being accepted. From a very young age I felt different. Later I realised there are many people like me”, she says. Maria Posadas belongs to the LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer) community. Although she shuns labels and pigeonholing, she declares herself a bisexual and a poly lover, a life choice that is not as acceptable as being homosexual or lesbian.
When asked what poly love is, her reply is sharp: “Poly love is about loving more than one person in different ways, sexual, affective, and emotional or any way you want”.
“Leaping without a net”deals with all these forms of love. “I thought of doing a series with a story and characters that anyone can identify with. Breaking the boy meets girl stereotype…. conventional love. I wanted to talk about feminism, poly love, in a word, inclusivity”.Although she had a very clear idea of what she wanted, she didn’t know how to go about it.
“I created some posters looking for sound engineers, cameramen, actors…. I thought nobody was going to sign up but suddenly I found myself with a team without even having a script. That’s how the web series got its name. It was a leap of faith. Moreover, this happens to all the characters, they decide something about their sexuality, the way they love, their vocation…..without knowing what is going to happen”.
Getting away from convention to reach another audience. That has been the reason for the success of “Leap without a net”. The author believes that some box-office hit series and films can transmit “terrifying messages.
There are many sagas of the “Fifty Shades of Gray” type which transmit a macho version of love. Then there are other options which deal with love between two people of the same sex and they are pigeonholed as gay films. Love between people should not be labelled. We are doing something new. Everything has been invented but it’s good that, at least on YouTube, there is a series which lots of people can identify with”.
Maria Pasadas does not aim to give lessons about love: “We don’t want to tell anyone how to love but instead for them to see all the options available and that these have to be respected”.
