In this webinar excerpt, the speaker introduces the concept of the "cost of sharing," describing how opening up—especially about personal or sexual matters—can lead to regret, judgment, and emotional harm when the listener reacts negatively. The speaker guides listeners through a reflective exercise to recall a painful sharing experience, then explains that both sharing and not sharing carry consequences. A decision framework is presented: consider the potential outcomes of sharing versus staying silent, and assess whether one can accept those outcomes. The talk also touches on cultural attitudes toward openness, noting that some cultures view sharing as a hindrance to progress. Finally, the speaker promotes a Patreon platform where recordings and additional sex‑positive educational content are available, encouraging audience engagement and continued learning.
Chapters
So what is this concept of cost of sharing, Leah, you may be wondering? Well, let me give you an example that you'll run in your own head. Let's walk down memory lane. Think about a bad experience of a moment in time when you opened up and shared Only to find yourself regretting it soon after. So if you can remember a time when you opened up and seconds later, or minutes later, or days later, you were racking your brains thinking, what was I thinking? I shouldn't have opened my mouth. Think now if you've got this in your head. Think now, what was the situation? Who was the person you opened up to? What did you share and why did you regret it? Was it of sexual nature? Was it of personal nature? Have you messed up and then opened up and said, oh, I really messed up, and they made you think, oh, I'll never share with them ever again, even if I make the worst mistake? And Whatever, I'll just not open up to them. And what was their reaction, and how did it make you feel? Because the thing is, that is the cost of sharing— the reaction, the regret that we would experience. And The problem is when we open up and they tax us, when they react badly to something that is so close to us and make us so vulnerable. We will never share with a person that made us regret opening up because the cost is too much. It's too big for our ego, for our self-esteem, for our mental health, for our relationship. Maybe you never spoke to this person again. Why? Because they looked down upon you, they judged you, they laughed at you, they made you feel unsafe, they made you feel like you're not worth it. Whatever it was, this was the cost that you paid for sharing. So now that we've established that sharing can be costly, and this is the reason why many people don't open up, we need to know that there are ways to work with the risk and the cost of sharing for ourselves and others. And I think this is one of the most important things in having difficult conversations, to understand the cost of sharing or not sharing even, because everything has consequences. One of the things that people fail to recognize is that action and inaction both have consequences. Most of the time people think, if I don't address it, it's gonna be fine. We're just gonna ignore it, pretend it's not there. It'll be fine. I'll deal with it. But there is a cost to that. The cost that if you don't open up, you'll never get close to them. And if they're not that kind of person that can deal with what you bring to the table, maybe they shouldn't be in your life. Maybe they're not the right person to be in your life for this particular thing, if not at all. So we need to consider, if I share, what's gonna happen? If I don't share, what's gonna happen? And am I prepared to live with this consequence or that consequence? Because everything has a price. Everything, every choice in life has a price. And I see that people are messaging in the chat, so let's see. Someone says, I'd love to have a recording of this video because I'm at work and can't follow everything minus distractions. Thank you. I have a Patreon page, to answer this one, and you can watch not only this webinar on it but previous webinars and future webinars on demand there, even if you miss them. Or you want to revisit them and so on. And there is other sex-positive educational content on Patreon that you can browse as a member, and membership starts at £3 a month. So you basically buy me a coffee with it, and you can, you can join Patreon if you're interested in having this and other previous webinars and future webinars. Someone else is saying, I guess it's a cultural thing. In some cultures, sharing or opening is seen as a bad thing because it delays your progress. I'm not sure what you mean by delays your progress. What kind of progress does it delay if you open up? And I'll come back to this one when it's clarified. Okay, so we'll get back to the risk thing at the end, but what I'm trying to get to is the fact that there is a cost of sharing. And sometimes we get returns on risking sharing, and they're really good returns. So let's
