How to Make Consent Sexy (Not Awkward) l ft. Sarah Sloane

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Men you know having your partner have sex with another man is literally a challenge to masculinity in a way that i think you know for some people that can be really hot because it really does kind of pull that taboo right up to the surface of what would happen if my wife was sexually pleasured by somebody else.

You'Re listening to sex with emily i'm doctor emily and.

I'M here to help you prioritize your.

Pleasure and liberate your sex life today's.

Show is all about consent and why.

It'S not only essential but actually sexy we're diving deep into what enthusiastic consent really looks like how to ask for what you want without killing the mood and why saying no can actually lead to better sex for everyone i'm also joined by sarah sloan from the app hashtag open and together we're taking your calls about dating after divorce navigating insecurities in long term relationships and yes we're talking about ethical porn consumption too this episode is about understanding that boundaries aren't barriers to pleasure they're the foundation for it we'll explore how being honest about what you want makes you sexier why slowing down can transform your intimate life and how creating space for authentic desire benefits everyone involved my intention is that this conversation empowers you to communicate openly embrace your desires without shame and remember that the best sex happens when everyone involved is genuinely excited to be there all right let's dive in.

I started thinking about all the things with sex that we are never taught not only are we not taught as adults but even today young people in schools are not being taught this as well so one thing that keeps coming up is consent i think there's some confusion about what consent actually means and consent is an essential part of sex it's not something that's outside of sex because we all have the right to do whatever we want to do in it with our bodies and with sex and since we've been so buttoned up about sex i know that i used to think when i was a young woman having sex that i didn't really think it was okay to say no or to stop sex let's say i was attracted to someone and maybe we went home i went back to their room or their dorm room or you know their apartment and we started fooling around and then i started to feel not comfortable anymore with it and i'd start to feel like oh god i'm not really attracted to this person or they just did something weird i thought it was my duty and it would be insulting and i would hurt this person's feelings and that was more important than me stopping any sex act that didn't quite feel right in the moment and i just thought oh blue balls which by the way isn't a real thing i mean yes your balls can hurt if you think you're gonna come and not come but then you come and it's fine like it's not like their penis is gonna fall off and i didn't owe anyone anything right especially as a woman like that's what i thought i i didn't wanna be shamed i wouldn't want him to not like me to all the reasons why we keep going with sex sometimes we think it's easier to say yes than to say no but if you really understand consent then you understand that it's essential to sex and not just actual intercourse but it's essential to even like moving forward with everything with kissing with making out with someone and then moving into other things it's okay to say not right now or let's slow this down i know there were a lot of times where i felt like sex was really rush you know rushing to the main course as we think is intercourse and i was like oh but i really liked when you're kissing let's go back to that or let's slow it down like i didn't think any of that was okay and i think this also has to do with being really in touch with our own bodies and exploring what makes me feel good am i actually enjoying this moment and we're so often in our heads during sex we're not in our bodies you know when you talk about somatic it's an embodied experience is actually being in touch with what's happening in our body in the moment but if we were more present we would say like that hurts or i'm not warmed up yet or i'm not feeling it if you think about it if you are thinking about being intimate with someone or you already are is it a hell yes or is it a hell no if you're not feeling the hell yes even if it's a hell maybe maybe it's time to pause what else would you need in that moment to get to a hell yes and maybe there's nothing maybe you're like i'm gonna stay in this maybe no period you don't wanna do anything with anyone unless you're actually both excited to do it you both wanna be on board we talk about consent and it's getting a lot of bad raps obviously cause there's so much assault on college campuses that there's this whole like oh great now i gotta like before i make out with someone i have to have a picture of them saying yes on my camera like that's not hot that spoils the moment but you know what else spoils the moment is when we don't know what's coming next like is she gonna let down her pants is to get sex gonna happen but if you clearly discuss your boundaries and what you're into and have all these healthy conversations around sex before you even have sex like what turns you on or what are your fantasies then we'll actually know what's on limits what's off limits then we won't be in our heads the whole time worrying what our partners are gonna think but let's just go back to consent for a moment so ways to ask for consent you could say would you mind if i give you a kiss could we move this into the bedroom do you want to have sex and consent doesn't have to be so dull you can make consent sexy you could reframe a question think about it as part of a seduction as part of foreplay rather than saying do you mind if i kiss you you could say i'm wondering what it would be like to kiss you right now like i'm wondering what your lips would taste like would that be okay if i kissed you to me that's hot like you're thinking about kissing me and then i'm like do i want this do i not want this but that's so much sexier than just not saying anything at all making assumptions or just going right forward and being rejected and the other thing is a lot of times we miss opportunities because we don't ask for consent right so we're so worried of rejection and we're trying to read someone's mind that we never make our move we never let someone know that we're interested because we don't talk about sex and it's so shameful and so taboo that we think we should all be mind readers consent goes both ways it's about being upfront being open what do i want what.

Turns me on this is why i.

Love our yes no maybe list that you can find at the sex with emily site it's a great place to start if you don't know how to even like talk about these things like what's on the table what's off the table it lists everything from cuddling to kissing to anal sex to spanking and if you both fill it out individually then you could compare notes and then you'll know well anal's off the table so i don't have to try anal or maybe there's some areas where you're both yeses well how great if you both said yes to something then you don't have to worry if that's okay and when you're in doubt about anything just speak up like if you're not sure that your partner you know is into what you're doing you can ask them and say you know hey how's this feeling are you into this do you want to keep going do you want to stop it's important to learn to be present in the moment there's so many reasons why mindfulness is important but reading the room like reading your partner are they feeling it cause there's been so many times where my face might have looked horrified or i wasn't really into it and i kept secretly wishing that my partner could tell that i didn't want to keep going and if they'd been paying attention you know they might have known or if they had that knowledge that maybe they were so terrified that i was good to stop because you know men sometimes are afraid of losing their erections let's say so they just keep going so i think reading body language is really important and also remembering that consent is temporary what i mean is i might tell you at the beginning of the night that i'm really into penetration like yes i wanna have sex with you and then it starts and i realize that you know what i actually changed my mind that's okay it's okay to change your mind it's okay that you know consent can change moment to moment or time to time just because i wanted you know you to go down on me last time doesn't mean that it's okay this time right so it's okay to check in and make sure that your partner's enjoying it and this is why again presence and awareness of you and your partner is so important and so as a reminder consent is not just the absence of no no doesn't mean yes consent is not thinking that a no means yes consent is not about continuing after you change your mind because you owe it to someone consent is also not non verbal resistance i showed you i didn't want it and you kept going you know consent is not something that you're coerced into it's not continual it's not a i'm not sure it's not a maybe just cause i dressed super sexy when i went over your house that is not consent consent is to maybe one act but it doesn't mean i said yes to everything we just don't want to ignore the signs from our partner and you know what's really hot is slowing down i mean go five times slower if we just slow down sex down in every way the kissing the fooling around the everything it's so much better because then we actually can feel what's happening we're not rushing and we're much more likely to actually know what feels good to us if we slow it down i just think sex goes way too fast sometimes so if you want to know what consent is like affirmative consent like hell yes consent it more looks like something that's equal you both want it you're sober now i know you could sober sex you're like oh god so dull first off that's when we don't have our right mind to be consensual but we i don't even think that we enjoy like i've done that i am not a saint but i'm just saying is that the best sex in my life it is not so remember it's voluntary it's enthusiastic i'm into it like yes i want sex it's engaged it's verbal and it's also very active it's honest and it's definitely continual we wanna keep asking for consent i've been talking a lot about how do we talk about sex and how we talk to our kids about sex i've been an advocate of it that in other countries they definitely teach sexual health and wellness and consent at a young age and so you meet kids where they're at so when kids are young they'll teach them about their actual real name for their body parts and they'll teach them consent you know there's some people that say can i change your diaper can i give you a hug you don't force them to give their aunt a hug if they don't want to give their aunt a hug right and then you explain to them that their body is theirs that they're autonomous no one else can touch your body if you don't want them to you give them the words to use and sometimes we won't say we know to something because we don't know how to say it so you can teach young children to say like please don't touch my leg it makes me feel uncomfortable i don't want you to do that to me and this consent language rules goes for everybody it's such an act of self care to actually be able to say no like i wish that when i said no to my friends or meeting them for dinner they would just say thank you for taking care of yourself i get that you have to work or you needed downtime a no is a very personal thing it's how i'm feeling in this moment i'm respecting my boundaries and if we could just reinforce people's own choices even when it comes to sex if we learn that someone's no doesn't mean that we're a bad person or that we're ugly or that our bodies are not attractive i think the reason why we don't take well to no is because we think oh i'm not attractive or i did something wrong and like i think every time someone says no to us for whatever it is going for coffee or giving a blowjob we think no means rejection on us and technically it is this person is saying no i don't wanna do whatever with you but it's not for the reasons we think typically we create whole story i'm a bad person i'm not desirable they have something better to do sure all that could be true always but typically it's because someone's just saying no that's not where i'm at right now being sexual with you at this moment doesn't speak to me doesn't feel good to me and if we could just continually reinforce that no is okay and it's actually going to get us closer to getting our own needs met like why waste time with a bunch of people who really want to say no but they're saying yes how great to just find your people find your person that actually is on the same page with you we'd get there a lot quicker we'd have much more pleasurable sex we'd have much more satisfying sex who doesn't want that hang tight i'll be right back after this quick break.

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All right i'm gonna jump in because my guest is here so excited to talk to sarah sloan sarah is a sex a kink and relationship educator and coach she's also the director of operations and communications at open which we've talked a lot about open on the show we actually had miley on a few weeks ago and what i love about this app is that i've never seen anything like it because first you can choose your identity your gender your orientation it's all cool you can also use a hashtag to express whatever you're into bdsm cuckolding spanking or just sexting you could hashtag it on this app it's just really cool but sarah and i have a lot in common she's been doing this for over twenty years talking about ethical non monogamy kink all the things so sarah welcome to the show thank you great to.

Have you here it's so lovely to be here thank you for having me.

It'S so lovely to see you i mean okay so after we had you know miley on and we've been talking about the apps right now with dating you know a lot of a lot of couples let's say this is what i've seen couples are staying together but they're like i don't know that we can continue in the same way so let's have some of those difficult conversations maybe there's a fantasy we unneck maybe we want to have a threesome or open it up and so what have you been seeing with open and membership and trends during this quarantine time you.

Know initially we i think we were all kind of scrambling to figure out like oh how do we make sure that we're still bringing our community of members something really amazing to kind of keep them keep them connected with each other because the first thing that happened was everything got shut down and we weren't able to see see our friends we weren't able to visit our family and so we knew that connection was going to be the thing that was going to get us through this so we started really doing some shifts in terms of our business including weekly get togethers and weekly educational events for everybody but also doing some members only events but what we started seeing was that initial downturn i think where people were just not really sure what they were going to do and now we're finding people are more and more interested than ever in reaching out and having conversations in trying to find somebody as a potential whether it's an online date or somebody to just kind of talk about their fantasies with we've seen a bunch of couples that have come on board in the last little bit lots of people who are singletons who are looking.

For yeah not just yeah let me say that it's not just couples you guys for singles too of course it's for literally whatever what i love what you're saying about these free events and it is a free app and you can find it at open so what's cool is that you have the free education and what's so that's open dot com events i sit here every night trying to help people sort of answer questions and kind of educate them on fantasies or how to communicate or just anything and the fact that you offer an online virtual place for people to to get more information right now because you know you don't go from zero to non monogamy right you don't yeah.

One of the things that we are kind of getting a clue on i think culturally is that when we're going through times of a lot of stress we pay attention to the fact that you know life becomes a little bit more valuable our time becomes a little bit more valuable you know i look forward to the two hours a week that i get to go outside and spend time with a friend that has become much more important than it was before and i think the positive quality of that is that we're looking at like how can i make the relationships in my life or the sex in my life feel really fulfilling and really strong and so we're kind of not glossing over like oh well i've put up with this thing for five or six years i guess i can keep putting up with it so i think for people who are willing to approach making some changes in their life or like learning something new with a sense of curiosity i think this can be a really transformative time for folks having workshops that are fairly short we don't make anybody sit there for more than an hour because it's really difficult to engage online but bringing in educators from all walks of life from all over the united states on all kinds of topics we've had everything from we have consent later this week we had a workshop that some porn performers and producers did on how to consume ethical porn so we have a little bit of everything so there's something for everybody to peek your curiosity so tell me about.

Your ethical because we talk a lot about ethical porn and well let me just tell you this you've got not one nut but two experts on the show tonight to answer your questions about fantasies porn open relationships how to try something different in the bedroom so let's talk about the ethical because okay so to set this up a lot of our callers are like confused by the porn consumption of their partner they they want to watch their partner but they haven't found anything that speaks to them we know that porn so much more readily available so maybe you could tell me about the convers conversation around ethical porn yeah curious what came up we.

Had a couple jetset and jasmine and king noir who are performers and producers they run their own porn business and they did an amazing conversation where they talked about really intentionally looking for porn that is created ethically that honors the people who are creating it that doesn't fetishize based on bodies or based on race you know looking at where porn performers are producing their own work so that they're making a good income from their work but it's about more than just kind of like surfing pornhub it's about actually finding a performer that you really like that is thriving and doing work that empowers them and then kind of figuring out like what work has this person done who is this person enjoying a lot of performers are on instagram and are on twitter now so you can kind of get a little bit of a behind the scenes and get to know them a little bit and i think for people who aren't sure about their own consumption of porn being able to try to find a click with a performer and then start with that performer's work can be a totally different way of approaching porn that is actually more i don't know there's a little bit more heart to it i think there is more heart to.

It it makes so much sense because there's sometimes so much shame people feel really bad or dirty after you for multitude of reasons but that might kind of help people feel yeah a little bit more heart a little more soulful in your porn watching a little more consciousness and let's talk to matt twenty six in missouri hi matt what's going on thanks for calling hi matt thank.

You my call of course kind of a weird question maybe so i'm twenty six and so i've never dated i don't have game i met my wife when i was twenty one very sheltered childhood didn't really get out we got married when i was twenty two the last several years in an abusive relationship no sex life come to find out she's been cheating on me and so now we're in the middle of divorce and we're in casenet and i guess the question comes down to a couple of things number one when is it okay to get back into dating like technically i'm still married i'm separated when is it okay to give back in the swing of things and two yeah how for someone with no experience matt.

These are such good questions and not weird at all and let me just tell you this this question's gonna help so many people like you don't all call in but i'm you know people listening cause i get this all ages matt it's not weird people are married for twenty years and have the same question so first off here's the thing i'm not one who's like you must wait six months i want you to wait until you're actually until you feel that you've healed from the relationship you're ready to move on already like is there still anger you want to make sure you're at a place where like we're definitely moving on and i'm ready to date i mean you did file that's great so really it's more about your own emotional state for example let's say i met somebody and they were like yeah we're in this proceedings it's really ugly my ex is a bitch she cheated at me i'd be like you are not ready but if you showed up on a date matt and you're like yeah you know my ex wife and i we're just we're parting ways it didn't work out but i'm really open open right now to just kind of meet people you know it depends where your head is right now so are you ready to date if society doesn't matter are you ready to.

Date kind of and this i don't know if this makes me have to be a bad bad person or not i'm kind of past feeling like a bad person i've done that for several years now i'm not ready for a.

Relationship you're ready for some sex okay well sarah is like literally the perfect person but first off it's okay for you to say state that to people because there's a lot of people in your position and that's how you get more comfortable so sarah sloan from open what do you think sarah absolutely you.

Know there's nothing that says that you have to go back into any kind of dating that fits a certain definition you don't have to go look for your next big relationship you don't have to go out and even look for more than just a single date i think the thing that really resonates with everybody and this is whether whether you're new to dating or whether you're not people forget sometime that somebody who's being honest about here's what i'm looking for and here's what my boundaries are that automatically makes you sexier because there are a lot of people that love to play games there are a lot of people that feel like they have to play a game or they have to say something to somebody in order to get a date with them or get some time with them and i know this from the dating app when people say you know what i'm here for this i'm here for a coffee date i'm here for looking for a long term relationship you are more likely to get what you're actually looking for than if you just kind of go into it and say well i'm open to anything you know like pick a thing that you want and go for it.

I think she's right boundaries are sexy there's nothing sexy that someone who's like i'm getting out of a relationship i'm just looking to meet people make new friends and i think it is a practice so to answer your question like how do you do it it's like a muscle right it's something that you just have to practice and build and i think being honest with people check out open however you meet people i think it's great to if you tell everyone that you're single and that you're looking to meet people say y to those events that maybe well right now i don't know what your quarantine's like in missouri but you know maybe there's some outdoor barbecues like say yes to those things that you wouldn't normally because that's where you're likely to meet people you'll get there matt you know and and don't be hard on yourself i relate to that too sounds like you've been through the wringer and i would also recommend therapy that could be really helpful you said it was abusive and that stuff doesn't go away in time unless it really helps to get into it a therapist that will really help this process too expensive they are expensive but i think your mental health obviously your physical health but when you get mentally healthy it's going to help you in every other area of your life because then you'll understand who you are what you're looking for why you got yourself into that place probably something from childhood was familiar but go easy on.

Yourself well thank you so much of course yeah thank you so much for helping me out with that i love the show by the way thank you.

Matt i'm here for you every night let me know how it goes okay okay thanks matt you probably get a lot of that sarah like people who are newly single or you know it's so scary to get back out there again you know if you've never been on apps but apps are the way to go now i think that it's almost like why not you know it.

Is so much easier to go into an app and you know we're set up for a double opt in so basically both people have to match so it makes it a little bit more of a comfortable environment you know you're not going to just kind of get a barrage of inappropriate photos through messages but i think that having an opportunity to kind of test the waters with somebody get a little bit of information about them i love it when people put pictures of them and their pets or them doing something active or something that looks fun you know i want to see somebody who has a little bit of a spark of personality but with a dating app you get an opportunity to kind of go like oh let me know a little bit bite size about you and then let's see if we match and if we match let's chat a little bit no pressure and we can kind of take it from there so it's definitely cheaper than a singles bar for sure and you.

Know exactly you don't need to buy them anything right you just need strong internet connection it's funny because i've been saying for years like if you're going to date an app like you i mean if you're going to date why get ready drive facetime them first do video chat and now it's expected i was it's funny i was talking to a friend this weekend and she was telling me about a date it's a quarantine romance she said we've been together for six weeks she says we met but of course we got through the first video date or we did two video date it's like that's the norm now which i love the slowing down of getting to know somebody i think that that's what we've needed in a way slowing down in every area of our life so you can ask the questions and and see if there's a.

Connection yeah it's about being able to make space for that exploration i think about it often when we talk to people who have been working a highly professional job for years and years and years and then for whatever reason they have some time off they get laid off or they're going to retirement and they suddenly have all of this time and they realize oh i've missed out i've skipped over things and so i think creating this space gives us a chance to kind of say well what was missing what could i do now what can i do differently in the.

Future yeah what's important to me what do i value i also want to talk to you about a few things if you want to hang out for a second we can come back take a quick break don't go anywhere there's more sex with emily coming right up let's talk to christy fifty two in texas hi christy hi emily how are you i'm so good sweetie what's going.

On how can i help oh my goodness okay well i my husband and i we've been married for twenty years and this is my second marriage my first marriage in did with my husband being unfaithful i've always felt really secure in this marriage recently we moved to a new city and don't know very many people he was here a little bit before i did moved but i when i got here i had noticed some stuff on the computer and on the phone and so obviously obviously he was looking at things and there was even a dating site but i think i do believe it was just mostly curiosity not i'm not thinking that he's had an affair but it just kind of triggered something in me and so then lately when we've been and when you have an active sex blast four or four or five times a week which i think is pretty good for a couple in their fifties yeah sounds good to me but i guess i just all of a sudden become really insecure because i feel like he's been watching porn and he's kind of being secretive about it and he's kind of trying new things which i'm figuring that he's you know learning from that and you know one night i said because i started listening to you you know why don't we try and watch something together and you know so we watched a little bit and i have given him several opportunities to kind of be like show me without saying i know that you're looking at it or you're watching something you know i just don't know how to address this but i can tell when we're making my life he has his eyes closed he might not even be looking at me and i kind of feel like he's not having sex with me even though he is but somebody in his head so i guess i just need to know how to communicate that because then i have to kind of dress up that i was nosy and yeah you know.

Christy it sounds like well first off thank you thank you so much for calling with this because that's a lot to unpack it's like new city you've been together twenty years you found some stuff it harkens back to your earlier cheating with your ex husband that you didn't trust and that cheated so i understand all of this so first is he cheating or is there something going on and then the porn part of it but i think there's another part of it that's more about pulling back and just talking about your sex life in general like you said is i love were closed and he's trying new things but you're having sex five days a week which is i think that's super healthy but i'm curious like has there been a marked change like did he just start trying new things a week ago or did it start to seem like new because you saw the.

Stuff i think that it's probably been maybe like in the past four or five months he's been here a year i've been here maybe eight months or so okay like i said i've stumbled on a couple inappropriate messages that made me feel uneasy i mean i have always just felt like on a pedestal with him and so whenever i see.

So they were message so you actually saw messages i'm just trying to understand so you saw like an exchange from.

Somebody yeah it was and it really was pretty innocent but he had reached out to somebody from high school and there was some messages there was nothing sexual in them really other than one of the girl there were like three and i think it was more of an ego boost or something like that just hurt my feelings that of course he would do that and of course i feel super inexperienced because i've had sex with two people in my entire life and i was married to both.

Of them christy so here's the thing there's a certain journey maybe it is important for you to kind of figure out what does turn you on there's no way you would know after being with two people for all these years you know i didn't know it i i was thirty five years old i didn't know i was with a lot of people and i was like no one i thought it was all about pleasing my partner i thought sex was about pleasing a man and performing and so i had to learn that too so there's like a two parter i think it would be great for you to talk with your husband and say i know when you ask me i want to learn together would you be willing to do some like mutual masturbation finding porn that actually works for you and just not to please him and maybe this would be something new and exciting that you know i love that he asks what you want it sounds like he really wants to be a great lover to you and he wants to please you it sounds like it and then if you guys could make maybe make this exploration part two of like your or you know your sex life two point zero right now about exploring together what turns both of you on that could be interesting what do.

You think sarah i think sometimes it's about having the having the vocabulary around sex and that can be really challenging when i you know i do kink one hundred one classes and people people are just like i know that there are things that i can do but i don't know what they are or what would feel good for me one of the tools that i've recommended is to do what's called a yes no maybe list and it's basically a list of like different things it might say like anything from oral sex to massage to you can get kinky versions of it but what it does is it gives you a list that you can kind of go through and you can do one separately from your husband and you can circle like yes i'm into this no i'm into this i'm not really into that maybe i don't know enough about this to know whether i'm up for it or not but you can kind of get this list of things that you can consider one at a time hey is this something that might be awesome for me to try and then the two of you can compare those lists and look for the yeses and look for the yeses and maybes because it starts developing a language of pleasure for the two of you the other thing is if even if porn is not something that turns you on i would suggest picking up some erotic i really love like the short story erotica anthologies you can get them on your kindle so nobody knows that you're reading porn but sometimes it's like reading through that gives you an idea of like oh it was really hot when he tied her up or it was really hot the way that you know she picked this person up at a bar and so you can kind of build a fantasy library for yourself that can then help you when you have that conversation with your sweetie and you say like hey i want to do more exploring can we talk about some things and keep in mind that a lot of men have a lot of shame around their sexuality we kind of don't necessarily give them the okay that hey it's okay for you to have sexual desires outside of what we've really specifically told men that they're allowed to do so you know approaching it from a hey i see you trying new things i see you like wanting to explore i want to be there with you i want to do this with you as your wife i think could potentially help diminish some of that.

Shame as well yeah without judgment and saying i'm in it with you babe we've both been together for twenty years let's play let's have fun we actually have a yes no maybe list on our site at sexwithemily dot com sign up for a free hashtag open class i mean like i think it is partial education and exploration because i totally get christy that you don't even know what's on the menu you're like i want to know but i've never explored so it's partially like educating yourself through all these great ways sarah mentioned and also just having a healthy conversation with your partner and also remembering it's not a one time conversation like this won't be solved one night at dinner with him right but it becomes part of something that you're it's like a new think of it like a new sport or a new hobby that you guys are taking up together and that hobby is your sexual intimacy great family of course christy i'll be here for you you can just have the first conversation let me know i'll come thank you for calling kristi appreciate you of course thank you for calling all right sarah sloan's here sarah sloan's from the app hashtag open we have history we both work together in this in the industry and sarah's worked in sex education so i want to talk to you about what's happened with jerry falwell junior and there was a lot of press about that he was the former chancellor and president of liberty university the country's largest christian university and what came out is i think there was a few allegations and then finally he had to step down from his post about cuckolding okay so cuckolding is the you know the fantasy of watching his partner have sex in this case with another man it's a common fantasy and it is one that has a lot of shame around it let's just talk about cuckolding for.

A moment so i want to just kind of say like a lot of people are assigning cuckolding to the falwells and like the old school dictionary definition and we know how long dictionary definitions are good for basically says that the cuckold is the man whose wife has stepped out on him without his consent and so like there's that piece but we don't know the content of what his relationship with his wife was they for all we know and it sounds like from one of the reports that this was consensual that they were consensually bringing a third person into the bedroom that he was watching and whether he was watching because he's a voyeur and he really wants to do that whether he's watching because his wife he likes seeing her pleasure which is the word compersion gets used a lot in non monogamy circles to talk about getting pleasure from your partner's pleasure it could be that there's a little bit of a humiliation aspect in it which is what we call the new definition of cuckolding but we know that there was some additions of more people we know that at least one of them is being presented as being consensual it seems like there are some other ones but yeah there but in most cases it feels like that this is something that he was aware of but i think that the way that we structure kind of morality in this country is that it's not okay for you to admit that you are engaged in a consensual threesome especially when you're somebody who is kind of like literally the head of the representation of the moral majority literally and so it really and we were talking a little earlier as well about that this is such a profound fantasy for so many people the numbers of men who have fantasized about their wife having another sexual partner is well up into the fifty percent over so the average man has fantasized about this exactly we.

Hear about them too and there's a lot of shame around it which i think again you're right it's such a good point that from all means from what i've read you've probably all read if you read about the news it was consensual it was an ongoing relationship with somebody who they kept seeing together to me it sounds like that's how a lot of these fantasies kind of unfold and i don't like the work i don't like cuckolding i feel like what'd you say they call it now just not compersion but you called it.

A cuckolding has a little bit more of a flavor of erotic humiliation erotic.

Humiliation because yes i love the term compersion because so many people just think like i can't imagine that that would ever somehow give me pleasure to see my partner have pleasure which is i mean a lot of us get hung up on like how could he watch his wife be with someone else and fifty two percent in studies this is by this justin lamellor who studies a lot of these fantasies says that heterosexual men fifty two percent said they'd fantasize about watching their partner have sex with someone else and the basic premise is kind of intuitive in the sense of like a lot of fantasies when we're told we don't want or we can't do something we want it even more i think we can all relate to that right we want it more and that does create a risk if you're gonna violate a taboo that creates a greater risk but the interesting thing is when he talked about that people in this particular article that men who are more on the right politically tend to have this fantasy more often than people who are on the left politically or more conservative people tend to have this fantasy and the people on the left are more into bdsm and that's more of their fantasy and i just find it interesting you break down a political.

Divide there's a lot of the structure of kind of like the patriarchy so like this is this very like men are the head of the household men are responsible for everything you know they're the spiritual leaders or they're the financial leaders of their home there's a lot of that that's kind of wrapped up in kind of current right wing thinking and so the big violation there is that the man loses control of what his wife can do and so for a lot of men you know having your partner have sex with another man is literally a challenge to masculinity in a way that i think you know for some people that can be really hot because it really does kind of pull that taboo right up to the surface of what would happen if my wife was sexually pleasured by somebody else so there's like this really dynamic tension for a lot of people on the other hand i know a lot of guys who are on the left wing who go to swing clubs that go to swing clubs because they really like watching their partner have sex with other people and it's fun and there's no that tension isn't there it's just that's not the thing for them and that's like the question of whether or not it's healthy the relative health is kind of not really the big thing to debate to me the question is is everybody going into it with a sense of curiosity and a sense of authentic consent and when it's over with do you feel good about it in retrospect that to me is how we break out what a healthy sexual life is and that could be cuckolding that could be you know tying your partner up that be having really amazing monogamous missionary position sex with maybe a toy every once in a while there's no right or wrong in that but the question is whether we're creating a space with our partners where we can say hey you know i think it'd be really hot if we like talk dirty to each other or if we you know cruise together on a dating app you know that's that's where the health of a relationship and that's where the health of sexuality comes from god it's such.

A great definition of it that it's like you don't want to wake up with a shame over like you want to make sure that you feel good about the act afterwards but it starts with curiosity and openness couples can actually have very healthy relationship we don't know what happened with his relationship hopefully it was healthy i think the part that probably wasn't healthy was that he was hiding it but in many relationships and you probably see this in your work as well like we rather live a life not fulfilling my family then actually try some things that actually could work out like maybe people have this fantasy of wanting to see their partner with somebody else or try bdsm but they just don't know where to start and i know you educate on this as well you know what are you finding do you find couples coming together and ask questions about opening up or what comes up what's the first step usually for couples or individuals that's a really.

Great question i think a lot of people come in and feel like i have this thing that i've been thinking about what are the steps that i need to take and a lot of times they want technique i have to say it really amazes me constantly the quality of members that we have in app because we've got a lot of people who they're kind of like okay so we've had the conversation about deep consent we're working on this and it's always kind of like this moment as an educator where you're like yay like you got it i think that for a lot of people it's the first step is figuring out that it's okay for them to have that desire and then figuring out how they can share it with somebody else without feeling shamed or judged and i was that person when i was in my late twenties i wanted to try some stuff and my soon to be future ex husband was just not down with it but but the way that he responded kind of reinforced this idea that my desires were shameful and so and when we were talking with christy earlier one of the things that i really wanted her to hear is like hey you know we come to the table when we're talking about sex with a lot of deep seated shame like we are not living in a culture that tells us it's okay to have the bodies that we have and so to acknowledge for our partner hey i want to make space for you to just tell me what you're into even if it's not something i want to do we can find a way to fantasize about it or we can find a way to kind of scratch that itch a little bit can be such a gift of grace for our partners and it also reflects back onto us if we're creating a space where we're not going to judge or shame our partners or our friends when they disclose to us then maybe we can internalize some of that and not judge or shame ourselves for what are entirely normal and perfectly healthy fantasies and desires it's all right it's.

All okay that's so true that part of our job as sex educators is really just saying it's okay it's healthy you're okay and then teaching us how to talk to our partners and recognize their shame part of being sexually healthy is acknowledging that we're all sexual beings and we have desires and we might not understand them but feeling that we have a partner that can listen and giving that space and saying i don't really understand your request but i'm here to listen let's learn more together putting words around it you were so right earlier when you said so what if you don't even have the words not only the words describe what we're into but the words to even be a compassionate empathic partner we're just not taught.

How to really communicate like that i remember going to marital counseling over two decades ago and they gave me that really simple when this happens i feel this way and i would like for this next time and that was the first step in me being able to have a conversation with a partner that was authentic i also really love reading books about emotional intelligence because i think that you know the same communication skills that we use in our relationships with our partners in the bedroom those communication skills work really well in the rest of our lives which ones have you.

Read lately that you're into i've been.

Rereading sonya taylor's the body is not an apology which is an amazing book.

Amazing amazing i don't think i know.

It she created the website thebody is not an apology dot com a lot of it deals with radical body acceptance and it talks about folks who are queer it talks about folks who are people of size it talks about folks with physical disabilities and it really is about that we all have the right to exist in our body with love and to get the things that feel good for us it's about sexual power it's also about getting our emotional needs met and getting our basic physical needs met and that all of that kind of together is what creates a whole person we can't just skip any one part of ourselves if we want to be a whole person right exactly i.

Mean that is the work that's so interesting like in going back to christy it's so true because it's like there was so much there to unpack where yeah yes i want her to have healthy conversations with her husband but it does all start with ourselves my listeners are so brave for calling in even and asking their questions because it's like i know that they've never talked about their sex life really or thought about it or to even say but okay the first step is loving ourselves and we're even liking ourselves where does that start and doing some work around it and that's why i always encourage people to have these conversations before you get married if we can but it's never too late yes i love this so okay let's talk what's coming up next for open if people want to come to an event you asked that you.

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