You're listening to the loving BDSM podcast, episode
4 11,
411.
What's the 411? I've just aged myself.
Does 411 even still exist in a world
of mostly cell phones?
I don't know. Kendall Lord's here with 1,
the only v. He's all often wondering, how
the hell did I end up here with
this crazy lady? Yeah. John Brownstone.
Look. If I was if I didn't offer
any joy and light and fun and love
to your life, we would not be here
now. That's true. But that means you gotta
take the good with the bad
because that's the facts of life.
The facts of life.
I can't remember the whole song.
Hang on. No. Let's,
carry on with the reason we're here. Oh,
for the record, because I don't know if
this,
is an indication of what is to come
in this episode. I did tell JB right
before we started recording this moment right now
that that I've been having a bad brain
week.
My executive dysfunction is just just awful,
and my thoughts are running away with me.
And I think I think that's called fair
warning. That could be inter make it interesting.
Yes. Think you've been warned, Mhmm. JB.
Anyway
Anyhoo's
That's what's gonna happen, but that's not what
we're here to talk about. This week, we're
continuing our back to basics series
with an episode on the
biggest topic of them all, maybe the 2nd
biggest. Maybe it's tied with another c word,
but it's on consent.
Mhmm. The other biggest is communication. Mhmm. Yeah.
Yeah. Anyway, welcome to the Living BDSM podcast.
If this is your first time listening, glad
to have you. Yes. It's like this all
the time. If you're back for another week,
welcome back. Loving BDSM is produced every Monday
Friday for your kinky pleasure in education and
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the podcast every Wednesday. All All links are
in the show notes.
By the way, are you looking for more
ways than just listening to our podcast to
improve your kinky life and have a happier,
healthier
power exchange relationship?
The kink bundle is back for another year.
This is a
massive bundle of content, education,
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if you had to buy everything in it,
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So it really is a huge, huge discount.
We have included for this year a brand
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It is a bigger, badder, better version of
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it's the full thing. You don't have to
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But we are not the end all be
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Some of whom include folks like Sunny Megatron
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Topics,
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the link to get to the page to
learn more about the kink bundle, to purchase
it if you're interested, is in the show
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posting it everywhere we can. So if your
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notes and the links,
it's everywhere. You can get it.
Yeah. And when it's gone, it's gone. And
the next time it comes out, it's something
different. So if the stuff in the kink
bundle this time is of interest to you,
get it while you can. It's only $99.
It goes away after Wednesday, September 18th, y'all,
so time is limited. Yep. Get it while
it's hot.
Yep.
Okay. So before we get into the topic
Mhmm. Am I procrastinating? Meep maybe a little
bit. Because it's a big one and, of
course, I always wanna do it justice. Anyway,
we got notes. It'll be fine.
We are once again sponsored by us,
partly because it fits with this series, partly
because I'm very proud of a thing I've
been doing.
Loving BDS on Etsy shop has air quote
because we are it and it is we
and it's all one.
Air quotes. And we're all together.
Exactly.
There's a good chance we're all just voices
in my head, but, you know,
we're not gonna look too closely at that.
Specifically
for for the the purposes of hi, y'all.
We love y'all.
We have our 30 days of DS workbooks,
which are for folks who know they are
kinky, know they wanna power exchange even if
you're not in one right now. So that's,
like, the reason I'm gonna mention the loving
BDSM Etsy shop, but also.
A second thing that I've been doing and
that I've been really excited to do, so
I'll keep doing it until the dopamine runs
out. I've been making
printable coloring books
featuring
some kinksters, including my own favorite phrases
in our relationship. I would say, yes, stat.
And he would call me
good
Good girl. Right. And so the coloring books
are different
honorific.
So yes, sir. Yes, ma'am. Yes.
Good boy. Good bunny. Good. Oh, and I'm
already done the second one, and I'm adding
in different honorifics
and very excited. I was supposed to make
another one today, and I just ran it
just it was a bad brain day.
So check us out,
Or check out our Etsy shop. It's where
we do all of our workbooks.
We've got planner sheets. We've got coloring books
now. We've got other fun stuff. So
we sponsored we again this week.
Okay.
This
topic, consent Mhmm. In power exchange specifically, because
consent is, like, given everywhere. It's supposed to
be understood for everything. Mhmm.
In kink, it is, like,
one of the most important tenets, the other
most important tenant being communication.
Power exchange, you know, there should be consent
in all aspects, but sometimes you're in a
casual pickup play top bottom situation and that
there's a conversation about consent to have there,
but we focus on power change. So that's
where this conversation is focusing. That does not
mean that consent in other parts of BDSM
are not important. They are, but this is
our focus.
So
the thing with consent is we've been talking
about it for literal years.
Our first episode on consent is episode 30.
So,
this is a higher level look as part
of our back to basics series to just
sort of reminders
for some folks, some major things to think
about in terms of consent.
But there's so much more to be said
about consent
that if you're like, yeah. But but I
have questions or but I wanna think more
deeply or but but what about this or
whatever?
I have linked to all the places we
have talked about consent,
both in the description box in YouTube and
the show notes page for podcast listeners. So
it especially the deep archive stuff. Just to
give you a little rundown, episode 30,
episode 115,
episode 182,
episode 190,
minisode
54,
and episode 380, and that is not including
all the times and just other topics where
consent comes up.
So so we've talked about it. And in
an effort to for this not to be
a 10 hour episode,
we're gonna try and hit high level points
and things that
are good to remember
if it's been a while since you've been
in a power exchange or if it's you've
been in your power exchange for a very
long time and you just don't think about
these things as deeply anymore because it's kinda
part of your
routine, that kind of stuff.
So
so let's and I do I we've got
notes and bullet points, and JB is on
the same page. I'm not springing any of
this on him. No. So we're gonna start
with what I I kinda call the gold
standard of what this sentence, and that is
informed and enthusiastic.
If it ain't informed and enthusiastic,
it's probably not a good idea.
My thought is, in power exchange,
like baby relationships that you just started, like,
5 minutes ago. If it's not informed and
enthusiastic, enthusiastic as a hell, fuck yeah. Mhmm.
Slow your roll because you're not there to
the nuances of what consent can look like
that we're gonna get into in this episode.
So let's talk about informed and enthusiastic
consent.
Okay.
What are your thoughts, daddy? Nice. Podcast listeners,
you can't see it when you're just looking
at me like, okay. Let's talk about it.
K. Go
ahead.
Oh my lord.
You didn't I didn't give you consent to
do that.
To
have
you be participate in the podcast that's 50%
your work?
No.
Consent is extremely important, especially
informed consent.
It's very important to know what you are
doing and what you are getting into.
And what the plan is and what the
plan is if the plan goes to shit
and how things are gonna work. Informed is
a we could probably do an entire episode
on just what informed might mean. Yeah. Because
it's not
there's the what your power exchange is gonna
look like ideally. Right? That's the thing you
negotiate.
But then there's the day to day stuff.
So in power exchange,
specifically,
we have routines and I have tasks and
rules and things I do daily.
And I know what those things are. All
the things I didn't know how to do
when we started, you taught me. That's part
of being informed.
The other half of being informed is if
I have a set of rules and routines
that I have to follow and there's gonna
be something that gets in the way,
My job is to let JB know
I I'm struggling to do this. I might
not be able to do this. This is
gonna be delayed. I literally cannot because if
I don't do that,
what it looks like is I just didn't
do the thing I agreed
to do instead of
explaining what the hell's going on with me.
So in being informed
goes both ways all as often and as
much as possible. Yeah. And, you know,
I think that's why,
you
know, many years ago, I used to believe
in in the safe, sane, consensual. Sure. It
was the old gold standard for Right. You
know? You know, long term ago. These these
days, I'm I'm more along the lines of
rack risk aware consensual kink. And that's evolved
a couple more times in the sense of
There's even more a couple things that, yes,
that are now a little different.
But, you know, you you need
to be fully informed of, you know, not
just the fun stuff that's gonna happen Right.
During a scene, but you need to know
about
the bad stuff that could happen. Right. Exactly.
Because if you don't know all that, you
cannot
give
truly full consent. Right, yeah. And the thing
is, is you can't plan for every single
possible bad thing that can happen. No. But
by never having the conversation, then you're not
planning for even the then you're not planning
for even the most common things that could
go wrong.
Right. As a smallish example, when it comes
to using a new impact play toy, we
have a a pretty
solid method that we recommend for others. There
can be variations to this, but essentially,
before JB comes at my ass with a
paddle and wallops me till I'm crying, it
goes a little bit like this. He picks
it up. He holds it to get the
weight, so he knows what he's holding. He
hits it against his palm to get an
idea of the weight. He hits it against
his forearm. He'll probably hit it against the
back of his own thigh. Then he's coming
to me. And if it's a brand new
sensation, it might he might do my arm
or the top of my leg first just
to kind of give me a sense of
it.
And this is after years of impact play
together. And then he's gonna do, like, a
light swat on my ass. Now if he's
pretty sure, like, this is a thing we've
played with before, it's just slightly different, he
he'll probably go harder because it has been
over a decade.
But we're gonna go through that process with
every single
new type of toy we try if we've
never played with it before, the material, the
style, the whatever. Because informed means he has
an idea of what it's probably gonna feel
like.
I get to have an idea of what
it feels like
before we're truly playing with it,
and then we're gonna play with it. And
then we're actually gonna go slowly into that
play and build up so that at any
point, I'm giving feedback of,
that's beyond the limit right there. That thing
you just did, don't That's your step too
far.
Backing on up. Pull it in a little
bit.
And that's
what informed looks like. And it means that
you have a lot of conversations. That's you
know? We did an
I think we did an episode ages ago,
or we did something
where we talk about what we consider our
only two rules of BDSM in general, and
that's communication and consent because you cannot have
consent without full communication. Right? And informed means
and this is a sticky one for folks.
You do not have to give up your
secrets to anybody. You get to have things
that you keep private.
That being said,
if there are things that you are aware
could be triggers for you,
certain ways of being talked to, certain words
used, certain ways and types and experiences with
sensations,
you have to tell the partner who's about
to
wail on you, yell at you, or otherwise
call you names
that you have those triggers. You don't have
to go into all your details about it.
You don't have to bare your soul unless
y'all are at that point in your relationship,
but you've got to inform your partner. Why?
Because your dom/top
needs to be informed about these things so
they make better decisions to keep everybody safe.
Right? So in informed
is very big, very broad.
There, you cannot talk enough
in a power exchange, especially in the early
days. Right.
You can get to a point, and we
are mostly there, where you can get into
shorthand, or you can go, you remember that
thing? And you know what each other's talking
about, but you can also get so comfortable
that it's real easy to give feedback in
the middle of a moment. Like, we can
be having a scene, and if something don't
land right, I'm a raise that. She's gonna
let me know. Right. Like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
I'm in my headspace, but also,
nope. That wouldn't it. You're adjust, please. Right?
Yeah. You can get there, but that takes
time. It takes trust. It takes, you know,
knowing one another. That just takes the experience
with another
And for some folks, you might never get
there.
Sometimes it's because the relationships. Sometimes it's because
stuff you've been through, stuff they've been through.
Sometimes it's just your own
what's the word I want? Your
the level of risk you're willing to take.
I'm a very anxious person. I've like, in
my mind, I've got, like, a 100 step
routine before I am comfortable with a new
thing. Like, I got there's so much stuff
I gotta know and think about and read
through and learn from before I can go,
yeah, I'm sort of comfortable with this. Right?
Some people are worse than me. Some people
aren't as aren't as bad. Right?
Whatever
however you're wired, you've got to honor that
and go through whatever those steps are, whatever
those assurances are
until you're comfortable,
until you feel informed.
It's another thing we always say, start slow.
It's like a slow and low thing with
power exchange and kink. You don't come out
of the gate, like, whipping somebody around, smacking
them full on the face when you just
decided yesterday Impact Play might be your jam.
Like,
you start small. You start with these
this thing and that thing because part of
being informed is trying it out on a
low Excuse me. Air quote, this word, there's
no such thing as safe in BDSM, but
air quote, safe way. So it's easier to
pull back
if the information you're getting through the experience
is that this does not work for you.
And when you try to go full on
out, straight out the gate, we've negotiated a
20 page contract with 32 and a half
items that the submissive will do before noon
every day, and you decide that on a
Friday and on Saturday think you're implementing the
entire 20 page contract,
nobody is informed enough to do that yet.
Yet. I don't care what kind of conversations
you have. Yeah. Because part of
the getting the information, the informed part of
informed and enthusiastic consent is knowing what the
fuck you're getting into. Yeah. So,
you know, you can talk it through. You
can research it. Please do. That's part of
getting in informed
with your informed consent.
And then part of it is to start
really small and tiny
to get informed through experience.
Yeah.
Let's talk about enthusiasm.
Okay. Or unless you have some more to
say about your inform I I just want
to talk about the polar opposite Okay. Of
this for a brief second. Okay. Okay. Because
I I have been coming across this a
lot lately in in places that I I
have been,
perusing.
No.
No is a complete sentence. Oh, absolutely. Okay?
You you can tell somebody no, you do
not owe them an explanation.
Mm-mm. Okay? You do not.
Just the fact you said no to them
more than enough, that should be it.
And if this is if you're in a
kink space and you happen to be a
submissive
and a rando, air quote, Dom rocks up
to you, DMs at the event, whatever, whatever,
comments on one of your posts, whatever they're
doing,
and tries to tell you that, actually, because
they're a dom and you're submissive,
you don't get to do that. Hell, fuck
no. Okay?
There are no
automatic rights just because of the roles you
inhabit. Right? That's within established relationships, and that's
with strangers you're meeting on the Internet. Like,
they don't get have a right to you
because they're calling themselves a dom, and you
are, like, over there, and you're like, I'm
submissive. I could do that. And the same
is true on the opposite because there are
many,
many of them women.
But many doms who get the laundry list
of do this to me
DMs from submissives
who just see them as a kink dispenser.
It's just it tends to be a lot
more accepted when a dominant goes, fuck no,
because you sort of expect that kind of
response from
a disgruntled dominant.
But, you know, submissives, if y'all need a
test of whether this is, like, a dom
who
respects you, first of all, if they're demanding
submission from you before they even know anything
about you and have had the first, I
don't know, 80 conversations,
that's a sign.
But if you
if maybe you're playing with some online, like,
role player or whatever,
the biggest sign is can they handle your
no?
Can they handle when you're like, nope. I'm
not doing this. Nope. I don't like this.
Nope. I don't accept this.
Online, we can block and delete. Please do.
Yeah. Mhmm. Like,
there was a word I wanted. Liberally. Liberally
block and delete. All the fuckers. Just block
and delete them all. Okay? You have no
obligation to anybody.
In real life, you might have to get
a real person involved if somebody's being kinda
creepy and, like, maybe it's a friend, maybe
it's a community leader, but you get somebody
and you're like,
this fucker won't leave me alone.
What we gonna do about that? Right?
But, yeah, I I agree. Now
as a relationship
develops,
at this point,
all these years later,
I have every right to tell JB no,
and it'd be a full sentence. Yeah. But
my
regard for our relationship and our connection,
as soon as I am able to explain,
I'm gonna explain.
It's entirely possible to get
and I don't use this term lightly, to
get triggered by something. So the only thing
I am capable of saying is no.
But when I am more
myself again and have the ability to communicate
my thoughts and what's going on with me,
the nature of our relationship at this point
in time,
he gets he gets a an explanation from
me.
I that's a thing that I freely and
willingly will will give him because
in my mind, he deserves that. 1, that's
more information for him later on when we're
trying to do other things because the more
informed he is, the more he can
provide things that I can consent to, and
he can consent to things that I need.
Right? If I keep him in the dark
about stuff, then
he's not working with full information.
But he earned that right
to know why I might say no to
something. Mhmm. So far,
in
in at least 10 years, probably longer, probably
since we started our long distance relationship,
I've never felt like I couldn't tell you
why. True. Quite frankly, if you're
dealing with somebody who, so far, they're checking
all the boxes, and you're like, okay. This
person seems like a legit person. But you
get to the point where you have to
tell them no, and something in you
does not feel comfortable telling them
why it's a no,
that doesn't mean that that automatically means anything,
but it is worth a deeper look. Are
they not really earning your trust the way
you need them to? Is there something
that you're sensing that's holding you back? That's
good information to have. Yeah. But I felt
safe with JB
soon enough that by the time we were
actually negotiating the power exchange Mhmm. If I
had to say no, I could tell him
why. Even if sometimes the answer was, I
don't know why, but it's bad juju, bad
juju, the answer's no. You know, early early
on in our relationship, one of the things
I had her do,
because, you know, I had a few years
in the lifestyle,
you know, over you, you just had the
one the one dynamic.
I was very big on on having her
research things. Mhmm. You know, and and
a couple times in the beginning, you you
were kind of like, well, you know, what
do you want me to do? Why do
you want me to to look into this?
I'm a sub, I'm not dumb. And It
would be about activities we wanted to do
or things we had kinks we had kinda
talked about. But, you know, one of the
what I told you about that was, like,
you know, whether we end up together or
what if, you know, if you go off,
you need to be educated enough to know
somebody's blowing smoke up your ass. Right.
And it was when we were talking about
types of play we might wanna do, different
sensations, toys. He'd be like, have you heard
of this toy? I'd be like, no. I
have no idea what that toy is. He's
like, okay. Well, your task for, like, by
the end of this week, go do some
research and write me a paragraph on it
to sort of show
that I understood what I had seen and
that I had actually looked at it. Now
writing a paragraph was a good task for
me because I'm a writer, and I'm not
intimidated by putting
sentences down. Right? That's fine.
If that's not your jam, then find another
way. But the ability to show that
this thing we had talked about that I
could go off and fig and learn about
it myself Mhmm. And get enough information that
I could kind of explain it back to
him. And then we were starting from
a more
equal footing in talking about that thing because
I wasn't coming at him with total ignorance
and having no clue Exactly. What it was
about and having to depend on him to
tell me what it even was that the
thing was before we could even negotiate. Is
this something we wanna try? Yeah. So,
yeah, it was a great it was a
great way to sort of play with submission
Mhmm. Because he would assign the task. He
would say Yeah. Go off and do this
thing
as my dom. And as this happy little
submissive, it was like, oh, give me something
to do.
That was great, but, also,
I learned more, could be more informed, could
give better Yes. Had better ability to give
enthusiastic consent. Yes. Yes. Yes. See what I
mean? All of the above. So for anybody
out there who how do I how do
we start our power exchange?
Dom, assign assign a thing you want your
sub to go learn about. Tada. And and
you know what?
Even even if that is not possible,
you know, if if you're if you've met
somebody at a party, anything about playing, you
know, don't be afraid to ask questions.
Yeah. And then pay attention to how they
handle questions. Yeah. Not that they have to
know all the answers.
Yeah. How do they handle it when they
are questioned
Right. About a thing? Because that'll tell you
a lot about somebody.
I mean, you would think
if
you're negotiating
with a dominant and and you ask them
questions,
you know, they should be happy about that,
that you're, you know, you you wanna understand
more,
you know, and not shoot you down for
it. If they're shooting you down for asking
questions, there is a problem right there. And
if they're defensive
about questions,
that's information.
Right? Again, it doesn't mean they're automatically bad.
Everybody has their things that get them riled
up. Yeah.
But part me personally, I want a dom
who can handle the who can handle the
fact that I am asking questions. Now after
12 years, somebody does have to go, woah,
time out. That's too many questions all at
once.
Can we do this in stages? Yeah. Which
is fine. I've learned a little bit since
then. Excuse me. But I was never I've
never not been allowed to ask questions. Debbie's
never gotten defensive about me asking questions about
the thing we're trying to do together. Right.
The kink or the power exchange, doesn't matter.
So if a person gets defensive, that's just
information to take in. Right? If they're not
willing to say, I don't know,
please pay attention to that because
you want a partner who can admit they
don't fucking know something and are willing to
go learn about it. Okay? Because the partner,
Dom or sub, that that fakes that they
have the information,
that is
an unsafe person to be playing with Because
that means they're gonna move forward with a
lack of information
to do a thing with you.
So not only are they not fully informed,
you're not fully informed about their knowledge level.
It's bad all the way around.
Can y'all see why this is such a
big topic? We have spent all this time
just on the informed part
of informed enthusiastic.
So let's talk about enthusiasm.
Especially
in the very beginning
of a relationship, of an experience,
of a scene,
until you develop
the long term
trust and communication that can create a shorthand
and a nuance we're gonna talk about in
a minute,
anything less than enthusiastic
should be a time out, should be a
pause, should be a no. Consider it a
no
until
you take a beat.
If a person
hesitates,
even if they're fully informed,
then it's not an enthusiastic hell yes.
If they
are unsure,
if you are a person who knows how
to read their body language and their facial
expressions, because that is a skill that tends
to have to be learned,
and that's not hell, yeah, let's go,
The bare minimum you can do
is pause
and go, wait. Is this what you wanna
do? Mhmm. Personally,
I would rather
my partner misread
my facial expression and body language
because I'm not being verbal enough to go,
hell fuck yeah. Let's go.
And stop for a minute to go,
I am not I'm not sure. Or is
this a hell yeah right now? Mhmm. Because
What's resonating with you at the moment? Right.
Like, do you wanna be doing this? Mhmm.
Because the
very real thing that can happen,
especially from the submissive side, is coercion.
And sometimes it's it's definitely done on purpose
because people can be predators
and sometimes it's
ignorance is bliss. Well, they didn't say no.
They didn't use their safe word. Yeah. But
they went completely stiff and stopped speaking to
you or looking you in the eye in
that one part of your play. Right? Like,
some people will use that to their advantage
in a grotesque and abusive way. Some people
will miss the cues. So if you know
you're a person who could even possibly miss
a cue,
the rule of thumb is stop what the
fuck you're doing. Right.
Tell and and that's part to me, that's
part of the negotiation.
You're negotiating your power exchange. You're like, we're
gonna do some kink scenes.
Here's what needs to go down, and either
one of you can bring this up.
If I'm not saying
hell fuck yeah,
it's not a hell yeah. It's not enthusiastic.
Put it out there between each other. Like,
what
doms, ask your sickness of partner. What does
enthusiasm look like? When you're, like, down to
whatever the fuck we're gonna do,
is there a way I'm gonna know? Are
you can you say these words? What is
our verbal signal? What is our physical signal?
Like, what's the sign?
And then if you don't Okay. Let's do
this. I mean, some people are are Eeyore
like people,
and I might not read that as your
enthusiastic
yes, so
let me know. There's nothing wrong with getting
that explicit in your negotiations
down to the,
how do I know this is a hell
yeah? You're ready to proceed forward. Now,
I'm gonna play devil and
throw something at you here. Okay. What happens
when you get
that
hell yeah, let's do that, but this person
the person you're negotiating with either is going
through NRE,
that they're having some serious new relationship energy
Mhmm. Or they're going through sub frenzy. So
to on one side,
we are all fucking adults here. And if
an adult has been informed as much as
they possibly can be, and they're saying hell
yeah,
they're responsible for themselves. That being said,
dominance, here's part of the reason you have
so much fucking privilege. Here's the fucking responsibility
of being the dom.
If you suspect
that your partner is enthusiastically
hell yating
a thing that they are not prepared for,
that they are not educated enough on, that
they haven't done the small basics of yet,
then you need to be the one saying,
we're going to slow this down a little
bit. Okay? Because is it possible in a
power exchange that the submissive comes to the
dom with this crazy enthusiasm, they're just hyped
up about this thing,
and it's like,
I would like you to
stick 20 needles in my back tonight. And
you've never even
read about needle play, let alone
tried it. Right? Like, you
if the
if the frenzy or the new relationship energy
is at that level where a submissive partner
is not even looking after their own health
and safety,
somebody's gotta do it for them. Yeah.
Now here's this
I don't know if scary is the right
word. That might be too loaded. Here's the
part that makes me as an outside observer
who's seen people do some shady shit nervous.
Submissives,
sometimes
you got into that frenzy because you thought
you never submit to anybody and here came
this little air quote one who said all
the right words and they're kinda doing all
the right things. And you are so excited
to submit that you cannot fucking tell that
they do not have your best interest at
heart.
And they're like, why, yes. I will put
splinters under your fingernails because you saw it
on a Reddit somewhere.
Sure. And they're not stopping you from your
own craziness. Right? Like,
that is a very real possibility.
And it's the danger of sub frenzy, of
any frenzy. Dom's can get their own kind
of frenzy because that excitement at finally getting
to do the thing can cloud judgment. Does
it cloud everybody's judgment? No. Does it cloud
everybody's judgment in a dangerous way? No. But
it can, and you have to be aware
of it. Aware of it. Yeah. So that
hopefully,
you can mitigate it before it happens.
And if not then, that you could, at
some point in the middle of it, go,
this all feels nutso to me.
I don't am I
am I being safe? Am I taking care
of myself? But some thought can penetrate your
brain, and you go, wait. Wait. Did I
really ask that person to just
drag me around the house by my hair
for 20 minutes?
Is that what I just asked for? Like,
we all have our own level of what
is just too fucking out there. And clearly,
y'all know mine now.
So
enthusiasm
is the gold standard. Yes.
But, yes, you're right. Sometimes
enthusiasm
is danger, Will Robinson. Danger. Danger.
And that's the tough part. Yeah. See, there's
a balancing act there. And and Rara brought
up a a good point. You know,
enthusiasm
can look different for everybody. That's why I
go back to you have to have that
conversation. Right. Especially if you are a person
who's been in
more than one power exchange
or you're doing this for the first time
and you are listening to us. Okay? Mhmm.
In the conversation,
in the negotiation
with a new partner,
talk about what enthusiasm looks like.
What does that mean for you? Are you
gonna be, like, super hyped up? Are you
What gets you excited? What do you what
is it like when you get excited? How
will I know that this is something you
really wanna be doing? Do you have are
there specific things? Are there ways that you
get excitement and show excitement?
Absif I don't think there's anything wrong with
having that conversation.
Mhmm.
Probably more often than not, it's gonna be
sort of obvious, but not always.
Most people, I think, kinda know themselves well
enough. Is
it maybe an awkward conversation to have?
Yeah. But you know what? You're already gonna
let a person you maybe have are just
getting to know
do things to you that in other contacts
would get the police called on you, so
maybe
have the awkward conversation.
Right. It's all I'm saying.
Get awkward.
Some of us wear our hearts on our
sleeves and they knew what our enthusiasm
looked like before we ever got to negotiations.
It was not a secret.
It was not hard to read. It was
it was not demure. It was not cutesy.
It was not mindful. She is not demure.
She's a goblin.
But that's the thing.
There will and this kind of bleeds into
my next point
that there can come a time in a
power exchange relationship
where you can give full consent. It's fully
informed. You are willing,
and it's not enthusiastic.
And that can be okay.
It is a delicate balance. It is not
for the newbie. And I mean the newbie,
whether that's a new relationship, or y'all been
married 20 years, but you've been doing DS
for 5 minutes. Right? Like,
2 types of newbies, both newbies.
Until
your communication is
solid,
right, like you have overcome the they should
just know what I want
bullshit or the Mhmm.
They never listen to me anyway, so I'm
not gonna tell them
what's going on. Like, the the old,
unhelpful
communication styles many of
us bring with us into kink,
until you have displaced that and that relationship
is rock fucking solid,
rock fucking solid,
enthusiastic,
hell yeah, is ideal. Just go with it.
JB and I are at a point in
our relationship, and have been for several years,
that I can consent to things, and I
am not enthusiastic about them. I'm not. I'm
willing.
I know what I'm getting myself into. I
know what it's gonna be like,
but there's no hell yeah. There's more like,
I love you so much. Can you just
just finish this up now?
Have a good time.
I'm doing it for you.
And that gets to be okay. Right? Like,
that's the fine line between coercion and Mhmm.
I I don't want this moment, but you
know what I do want? I want the
intimacy. I want the connection.
I want and this this is both a
danger zone and not a bad thing at
all, again,
nuance. I want to know
that I did that for my partner.
I can be that way
because 99%
of the time,
the consent is enthusiastic
because I'm not being made to feel guilty
if I don't. I could he could want
to do a thing.
Free use in our relationship is a thing.
He could want to do a thing, and
if I really didn't wanna do it, I
know and will use the freedom I have
to go, I love you so much, but
no. Not tonight.
Red, or whatever I need to say that,
like, you know, he understands
completely what I'm saying. Right. I know I
have that freedom, and there will be no
repercussions. I don't have to No. To worry
about the state of our relationship if I
withdraw consent
unenthusiastic
with my consent. And and then at the
same time, you know, as as her dominant,
there are times I have to to gauge
where, you know, she'll say, you know, Yeah,
it's okay, we can do that, but, you
know, you've had a headache, you know, your
stomach's not doing so great, you know, and
then I have to make the decision, you
know, should I, shouldn't I? Yeah. You know,
and and make that call one way or
the other. And that goes back to another
lay layer of being informed.
We do have
a form of free use and consensual non
consent in our power exchange baked in. The
reason we can do that and I I
we did not start off that. We did
not no. We didn't start off that way.
I mean, it was fairly early on when
we lived together, but it wasn't, like, immediate.
But we can do that because I know.
He knows I'm gonna tell him I got
a headache. I'm feeling sick. My mental health
is bad. Like, he's gonna Right. He knows
I'm gonna tell him what's going on with
me, and I know that he's gonna use
that information and go, okay. The responsible thing
to do is to let her ass sleep
over there and not wake her up with
my dick. Okay?
And here and here's the thing. And immature
players, immature kinksters,
do the,
oh, no. I'll have to miss out on
this thing I really want, and I'd rather
just push forward
and have dubious consent or none at all
and then play the but you didn't call
red. Right? Because I don't wanna miss out
on this opportunity
thinking that
you won't get the opportunity again. You wanna
know how you get the opportunity to play
again? You respect your fucking partner and go,
nothing about that's gonna be enthusiastic and responsible,
so I'll just hold off. What if I
said time after time after time
on this podcast? You don't break your toys.
You don't break your toys.
You break them. You can't play with them.
You don't break them physically. You don't break
them mentally. You don't break their trust.
Mm-mm. You don't you safeguard that. You go,
I've been dominance. I've been given this authority,
this power, this control,
and this responsibility.
Right?
I wanna get to do kinky things with
my partner
tomorrow. So maybe
I will consider their well-being today. Right.
Yep.
And that is how I can give
Rara said it in a good way in
the live chat, sincere
but unenthusiastic
consent.
I promise you, there there are some times
when I've been like,
oh,
yeah. I feel this dick of knocking. Okay.
We're doing this. Okay.
Am I am I am I okay enough
for that? Yeah. I'm okay enough for this.
Okay. Here we go. And I'm, like, I'm
not
screaming and hanging from the rafters. I'm just
like,
sure. It's cool. Let's let's do this. By
the end of it,
I'm like, you know what? That that was
nice. That was nice to have done this
together.
But you work up to that with the
right partner.
And for anybody
who has kinda had to do the dating
around and hasn't found
what feels like your forever person, right, whether
you're gonna marry him or not or live
together with him or not, but that's a
person you keep coming back to. We haven't
found that person. I get it's difficult to
know, is this person the right one?
You don't start out the gate with,
you know, allowing yourself to have sincere and
enthusiastic
consent.
You start with
the no as a complete word. How did
they respond to that? You start with the
you only wanna do this when you are
enthusiastic
about it and your consent is clear when
it's like, it's fucking go time. Let's go.
Let's do this thing. Right?
Because it's in the times when you have
to air quote this because it's not real,
disappoint
your partner,
that you kinda see who they really fucking
are.
You know? The mature people who are capable
of handling, like, their own fucking,
you know, grown up feelings
go, oh, okay. Yeah. I'm
I'm minorly disappointed, but I want you to
be happy, healthy, and safe. So this is
fine.
Oh, you need more information. Let's go on
the journey together of learning about it more
so you're more comfortable. Oh, you have questions.
Maybe I can answer them. Maybe I can
point you in the direction of somebody who
can. Those responses
to when you are not enthusiastically
consenting
can give you the information you need to
know, could this person become
a person
where I can unenthusiastically
consent or we can play with free use
and consensual non consent if that's even your
jam.
Let's be very clear here.
You don't have to like it.
You don't have to want it. It's not
a requirement
of power exchange to play with consensual nonconsent
and free use.
Do many people do it? Sure. Do some
people like it as an aspect of this
is the trust and devotion I have to
this partner?
Maybe.
That's not it's not a requirement. And if
you're not into it, don't
do it.
Simple as that.
I put and I didn't quite know what
I meant when I said in my notes,
consensual non consent isn't a binary. I think
what I meant by that is some people
believe consensual non consent
means that the dom can just come up
to their partner at any point and do
what the fuck they want with them, toss
them on the ground, and walk out the
door,
or it's not that. Like, that there's it's
a black and white thing. And we have
found that free use, which is part of
consensual non consent, we did a whole episode
on that. I believe that was episode 380,
is it's can be very subtle and it
can be very nuanced.
Ours is
JB can technically
come up to me and do, within my
own boundaries, whatever the fuck he wants at
any fucking point, which is how I get
woke and put dick
sometimes.
But the reality
of that
is just because he can
doesn't mean he will.
Right. And that's the thing you wanna pay
attention to if you're gonna navigate that kind
of consent in your power exchange.
The responsibility
the dom takes on and handles
about just because they can,
they don't. Right? There are too many out
there who put on the little hat and
call themselves a little domly dom, say all
the right words at least online where they
can use chat GPT probably at this actually,
you know what? That's the one good thing
I'll say about AI. None of them are
kink friendly. They will not give somebody the
script.
You gonna have to learn it the old
fashioned way the rest like the rest of
the posers did and go infiltrate kinks' faces.
Oh, god.
Anyway, I mean, I don't want that either,
but you know what I mean? At least
it's not as easy as chat GPT.
But they'll say all the right things,
but they will then
say the things of, well, I'm the dom
so I can do what I want.
Those are not the people we're gonna play
consent to non consent with, y'all, because you
can't trust them. You can't trust them to
go, wow.
My partner is over there throwing up in
the toilet
and has shitting at the same time with
cold sweats.
I'm a little turned on, but maybe now
is not the time
to go, you know,
shove my dick in their mouth or whatever.
Right? Like and did I use the dick?
Yes. Because does it tend to
be cis men? Yes.
Not always.
Not all,
but enough.
So you're gonna look for, is this a
person who can handle who can handle
the minor disappointment? Who cares more about your
well-being
than their needs?
Air quote, needs. Right? Yeah.
Yep. And that's how you can play fast
and loose with what cons what consent looks
like. Like, you can do the, sure. Wake
me up by, you know, yanking me out
of the bed by my hair.
Because I know that when it's bad or
when there's something going on or when that's
not a good time, you will respect that.
You will be aware of it. I don't
have to necessarily tell you that maybe tonight
when we go to bed at 11 and
I have to wake up at 3 because
that's what my job makes me be there
by 5, please don't wake me up that
way
because you've got enough sense of responsibility as
a dom to go. That's not gonna be
good for them. Mhmm. So we won't do
that.
I didn't know this episode would just be
an excuse for me to rant at all
the bullshitters out there. I'm sorry.
Didn't. I wasn't.
Do you have anything else you wanna say
about consensual nonconsent? No. We have done episodes
on them. So they're there if you wanna
do deep dives.
Here's the part we've kinda been talking about,
but let's let's end here Okay. On consent
and power exchange.
Withdrawing
consent whenever the fuck you need to.
Yeah. I don't care how you
coordinate
your power exchange. I don't care if you
call it total power exchange. I don't care
if it's micromanaged power exchange. There had better
be a fucking mechanism
for either partner to withdraw consent.
That mechanism might look different depending on your
dynamic.
Right? The more master slave, total, total, total
micromanaged
down to, like, every minute of the day,
couldn't be me dynamic,
won't
have the same way of withdrawing consent
necessarily
that a loosey goosey power exchange like JB
and I've got. Right? I can, at any
point, at any moment, of any day, look
over him and go red. I don't know
what we're redding about, but something.
Somebody else who has a very tight structure
might have to use a different mechanism, but
that mechanism better fucking be there.
Yeah. I'm now yelling at y'all, and I'm
sorry.
Be because, you know,
consent is not one and done.
Alright? I didn't get consent from you in
the beginning of our relationship, and that is
a blanket
Yeah. Everyday moving forward. For every day we
are together Right. And for everything we do.
No. It doesn't work that way.
No. And that's that Consent is ongoing. And
that is the frustrating thing because
plenty
of the air quote bullshit doms,
the bad doms, the uneducated doms, the irresponsible
doms,
however we wanna label them, will go, well,
you said yes. And, man, they'll fucking have
the date and time memorized.
Why why you gotta know it that well?
Why? Why do you have to know the
exact date and time to throw it back
at a partner? Because the like you said,
consent is ongoing. Mhmm.
Each partner should be
working to
have, earn, maintain
the consent of their partner
every fucking day,
every fucking day. And I don't really care
what I said
on
December 23,
2012
because what matters for my consent now is
what I said
on September
11,
2024.
That's what fucking matters.
Yep. So if you happen to be in
a dynamic, you're like, I don't know. Am
I kinda being treated like shit?
How how how does a partner handle it
when you go, no. I don't wanna do
this. No. I don't like this anymore. This
isn't working for me. And this doesn't have
to be the whole relationship. It can just
be this one thing you've been doing for
a hot minute.
Right?
There are so many signs and ways, and
sometimes you don't know them until hindsight and
you're learning from
bad shit that's happened. But there are so
many signs that
most shitty partners will give off. Most of
them are not as smart as they think
they are. Okay?
They're not as good as they think they
are. Sometimes we're just not paying as close
attention as we eventually learn how to do,
And a good clear sign of whether you
do you should be in a power exchange
with them at all is how they handle
it when you have to tell them, this
thing we've been doing is not working for
me.
That is true of both sides of the
slash.
Mhmm. I don't care what you negotiated on
day 1 and consented to on day 1.
You get to
redetermine
what you're consenting to every fucking day. Right.
And that's the dom and the sub. Now
the dom has a
it's less overt most of the time with
most dominance because if they don't wanna do
something, they just don't do it. Right? The
I think the only time we've ever The
interneater can't make me do it. Right. I
think the only time we've ever had a
conversation where you've sort of
formally
withdrawn consent is when it was something we
did negotiate, and we did say, hey. We're
gonna do these things, and you kinda had
to go,
yeah. That's not working for me. Right? We
we needed to have that conversation. Doms, if
you don't wanna do anything anymore that you've
previously said you would do, please do not
just stop doing it. No. Have a conversation.
Have a
conversation.
K? Yeah. Your boundaries matter and important, but
leaving your partner hanging and wondering what the
hell's going on when their expectation was this,
and now you've changed things, things, it's it's
all gonna get fucked up. That's just like
had,
as as the kids were growing up and
and the one still is, kind of, you
know, that is something that,
we always talk to them about because it
it even starts there. You know,
kids are not always happy with the rules,
you know? Who knows? And,
you know,
sometimes
the kids, you know, they rather ask for
forgiveness than,
permission.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. One definitely. Thank god he's
an adult now. Right. Do what you want.
So, you know, that, you know and and
always tried to make a point in pressing
the kids, you know, alright, you were not
happy with this,
you know, rule and the thing and, you
know, everything that went along with it. Not
up to you to just stop and change.
You know? Need to talk about this. Right.
Use your words. Yeah.
And that's the thing. Doms, you've got to
be able to have that conversation.
You do I do think Dom's I don't
wanna say easy. That's
I don't like that word, but I think
it can be simpler for a Dom.
It's why we don't talk enough about Dom's
also being allowed to have safe words. Right?
A safe word is not a foolproof mechanism
with which to withdraw consent, but it is
a tool, should be one of many.
Yes. We tend to talk about it for
the submissive or the bottom because they are
on the receiving end of whatever is happening,
and it is very easy for things to
go bad and there to be a a
danger situation. Right? Yes. Yeah. But dominance gets
a safe word out. The difference is is
that dominance tend
to I think only once that I can
think of you actually safe worded. Mhmm. Most
of the time, you just stop. You're just
done. And I'm like, well, I coulda gone
for another hour, and you're like, that's lovely.
I couldn't. We're done now. Yeah. And that's
the control you have. But what gets
lost in that sometimes is the communication about
it. Yeah.
Because I promise you plenty
plenty of people are not dissimilar to me
and will make up our own story in
our head about why you stopped doing the
thing,
and we'll forget to go ask you why
you stopped doing. And so now we've worked
ourselves up,
but when all you gotta do is talk
to to yourself. And and and here's another
little caveat, and I throw this in here
because this is something you and I experienced.
When a partner is unable
to give consent,
alright,
In this and and I'm talking about this
in
in the fact that we're already in a
scene,
okay,
and you have gone so you have been
so far under in subspace I'm not even
speaking anymore. You you cannot speak and when
I ask you for a color Mhmm.
You could not respond.
Right.
And at that point,
I was like,
we're done. Mhmm. And sometimes Everything ends. And
and depending on the situation, sometimes everything ends.
And that's Mhmm. In that moment, we were
at the club. If I if I wasn't
responding, scene was over. Move on. Let somebody
else have the space. At home,
I might come back to myself. I might
we might have a conversation. You kinda have
that lull sometimes, and then you start back
up again. Yeah. That's another thing with consent
specific to kink scenes. It's not specific to
power exchange. All kinksters should have some version
of this. Right.
This goes back to enthusiastic consent. When in
doubt, fucking check-in
in a scene.
If you are
if sometimes it's if you're uncertain doms out
there, and sometimes it's like, well, I think
I know what's going on, but it's good
to, like, just take the temperature of the
situation. Right? Yeah. Like, if I go quiet,
that's the time to check-in. I'm either zoned
out feeling real good or I'm I'm unable
to, like, say words now.
But it doesn't have to be this
stop everything
turn you know, air quote, kill the mood
Mhmm. And have an interrogation about where your
partner's at. It is as simple as you
we do a color system. Yeah. Because our
my safe order is red. He'll say, give
me a color. Mhmm. And if I'm enthusiastic
about it, I don't think that's worth the
Green.
Oh, I'll tell you. Forest green, hunter green.
Every Dark green.
Pine tree green.
Right?
That depends on how playful I'm feeling. Because
sometimes I really like the scene, but I
really wish she'd stop hitting me that with
that one thing. And so I'll say, like,
greeny yellow,
yellowy orange. Like, I get creative with it.
You do. Which for us feeds into our
dynamic because it's playful and it's silly and
whatever. Yes. But he can do it sexy.
He can do it we don't role play
because that's the quickest way to give me
the ick. But
if you're doing, like, a role play, like,
there's there's a scene scene. Like, there's script
and choreography and maybe costumes.
You can keep
it in character. Like, I don't know how
because
I have the ick thinking about it y'all,
but you'll figure it out. I I have
no no doubt. You'll figure it out. You
can keep stay in character. You can keep
the tone
of the the mood. Ours just tends to
be very
sadistically
playful.
Okay?
I'm going to scream and giggle,
when we really get to play.
So yes, if he asks for a color
and I'm feeling myself, he's gonna get all
the shades I can think of. Yep. I
really need to get one of those mega
boxes of Crayola so I can learn.
And maybe, like, the,
the Pantone,
like, catalog
so I can learn some new greens, yellows,
and reds, and oranges.
I mean, I think that would be delightful.
A call out there that I don't know
what it is. You're screwed, kid.
You're screwed.
Wait.
Here's the thing.
Consent
is a very serious thing. Yes.
It should be taken
seriously.
It is the responsibility
of everybody
involved.
That means,
submissives,
your dom will not just know when you
that is unfair of you to expect them
to.
It's a skill to develop. You gotta learn
how to fucking say the thing you gotta
say.
If verbalizing things is difficult, you figure out
the tools that work best.
Ideally,
you figure out what the signals are of,
like, what it would mean if I screamed
out hunter green or forest green in a
scene
before you see him. You have these fucking
awkward conversations. They're not awkward. Once you're with
a partner
that you've got that
intimacy and the vulnerability and the trust and
you know who you're dealing with,
it doesn't it should not be awkward. It
can be difficult. I've had difficult conversations with
JB that I was like, I really don't
want to have to have this conversation with
you, but I know I can. Yeah. I
know I'm safe to have this conversation with
you. Right? Mhmm. Once you're at that point
and that's mutual and you're each proving to
the other every day that you are a
safe partner for each other Mhmm. You can
get goofy. You can go off the rails.
You can do shit that that we would
never recommend to a brand new person. Like,
I'm not
I'm not gonna tell somebody who's never seen
before with this dom they met 2 weeks
ago. Just scream out a random color. That'll
go fine. Like, no.
No.
Yeah. No. It don't work that way. But
that's the thing you can develop, and you
develop it with a trusted partner, somebody who's
worthy of that. Right?
There
and that takes time. That really does take
time.
But, yes, withdrawing consent has to be a
factor. Yeah.
Asking for consent
even when you're pretty sure you've got it.
There's nothing wrong with that. It's not diminishing
it anyway. It does not diminish a dominance
authority. It should not diminish their standing. It
shouldn't for them to check-in. And I and
here's the thing. For all that I lecture,
doms who think they shouldn't have to,
now that
certain
parts of the Internet have found us on
Instagram. I am seeing some shit, and I
am worried for some of you submissives out
there. If I have to read one more
comment of I shouldn't have to say it,
I'm a lose my damn mind. Uh-oh.
Because
Boop.
Yeah, you should have to say it. There
can come a point
where you may not have to actually say
it anymore.
Shorthand in relationships
exists.
That clearly needs to be a topic at
some point when we're out of this series.
But because I I mentioned it so fucking
often.
But, yeah, you do have to say it.
You should say it. You better fucking say
it because it's not fair to you, and
it's not fair to that partner. You wanna
know how, and
it's
not foolproof because there is no foolproof, but
you wanna know a real quick way to
weed out a shitty fucking dom who's not
worth your fucking time?
Start speaking up for yourself. Advocate for yourself.
Tell them what the fuck you want.
Most of them, if they're no good, you'll
you'll probably see the signs pretty fucking quick
because they usually
not all of them, but some of them
cannot fucking handle a submissive who knows what
the fuck they want and will communicate it.
Weed them out as quickly as you can.
It won't get all of them, but it'll
get enough of them.
Also,
care about your potential dom as much as
you fucking care about yourself. Maybe more. Some
of y'all maybe. Maybe there are some subs
who don't think they should have to say
the thing. Maybe they don't care about themselves
as much as they should.
Fucking care about the other person. If you're
not telling your dom
what you want, what you're trying to get
out of this experience, what you want your
power exchange look like, what you want the
scene to look like, what you want the
sex to look like. Maybe not in the
moment,
but when you're negotiating it outside, how the
fuck do they consent? They don't even know
what the fuck they're consenting to. They don't
know if they do a thing,
if you want it, if it's good for
you,
if it's like safe for you to even
experience.
What the fuck are we doing?
If I had to read one more look,
I made a little meme I've I've been
making reels that are more meme focused. It
delights me.
People are seeing them. I get the dopamine
rush from that. But on the one
where I used the sound bite from is
it the movie The Notebook? I don't know.
Some little blonde white actor is screaming, just
tell me what you want. Just tell me
what you want. What do you want? And
I felt that frustration
on JB's behalf
very early in our relationship. And a lot
of people were like, yeah. I know that's
really hard. And there's discussions that happen in
the comment section. Mhmm. And then there are
just enough people who are like, but I
shouldn't have to. I don't want to.
I'm gonna lose my damn mind in this
I
know it can be awkward and uncomfortable
And I even know the struggle from a
submissive perspective
on part of like, this is me personal.
I'm not speaking for every submissive. Part of
what I want as a submissive
is to not have to think too fucking
hard, to kinda turn my brain off and
let Mhmm. Let JB lead, let JB decide.
You don't get to the point where you
can do that with minimal risk until you
figure out how to
talk about it. Outside of the moment, in
the moment, in the scene, I know how,
at this point, I've developed the skills,
safe word out pretty quickly, which I don't
really have to use my safe word, to
just communicate, hey, that did not that that
impact there did not land where you meant
it to. To communicate and and, like, tweak
things in the moment. Took me a while
to get there,
but you can't get to that
without having the conversations first in the experience.
And
it is it would be awkward for me
to have to turn to him in mid
scene and go, actually,
you know how we talked about this, like,
a week ago? We had that scene 2
weeks ago, but this isn't working for me
right now. No. You have that's why you
do debriefs after a scene. Right? Maybe it's
not the same day. Maybe it's, like, the
next day when you're, like you've come back
to yourself, where you talk about, hey. What'd
you like? What didn't you like? What can
we do better? What do you wanna try
next? How'd you feel about that? Or you
know, hey. Friday night is our time to
fucking play, and it's Thursday,
and I got some shit going down. Well,
on Thursday,
before the scene, you talk about it. You
don't have to talk about it in the
moment. You can have
in a perfect world, you can have the
head space you want in the scene,
but for everybody to be able to consent,
to maintain consent, to withdraw consent,
to be
as
to mitigate the risk as much as possible.
I hate to say it as safe as
possible because it's an impossibility.
To mitigate risk as much as possible,
you have to learn how to have those
conversations.
And it is awkward, and it sucks at
first until you get good at it. And
I promise you,
the I probably filled reams of fucking paper
with handwritten notes because I was too scared
to say the damn words. Because what what
do you what what you know, when you
say Yeah. I'm just yelling at everybody. They
should know.
Mhmm. Alright. Fucking hate you. Okay. Then then
you're putting
putting me into a guessing game.
And,
that can't end well.
So, you know, yeah. It it is important
because now consent is questionable. Right. And it's
questionable on both sides. Mhmm. Because the other
thing that I find from the type of
submissive who just goes, you should know, or
the other one I've been seeing on that
same one,
that same reel,
is, but your pleasure is my pleasure. Here's
the thing, that is true until they accidentally
find the one thing that freaks you the
fuck out. Right. And then guess what? Their
pleasure ain't your pleasure anymore. Or or or
in that, you know, all of a sudden,
you know, step on a landmine. Mhmm. Okay?
And now we're dealing with a, like, a
mental health crisis. Right. Yeah. Right. I mean,
you know, I I,
as much as I would've would've liked to,
you know, I I failed out on psychic
101.
Yeah. You haven't picked the right lotto numbers
yet. No. I mean, apparently, you have to
play the lotto to win it, but still.
Yeah. Still. So,
yeah. You know, that that that is not
not a good way to go
at all.
I mean, I this is not universally true,
but tell me you're a new sub without
telling me you're a new sub. Tell me
that you want you want whatever they want.
It's that same thing of the newbie subs
who go, I have no limits. Yeah. I
mean, you know, someone someone telling me that,
well, you should just know.
Okay? Or, you know,
I'll do anything.
Will you? Yeah.
Right. Yeah. You know, those those are huge.
They're red flags. Red flags. They're red flags.
And it's not a thing that's it's not
that it's not overcomeable. It usually requires
more education, more understanding
of how this can should all be operating.
Right? Yeah.
And getting over the discomfort
of having to say the thing that you're
thinking. Yeah. And there's a lot that goes
into why it can be difficult for people
to communicate. Some of it's just lack of
skill. Right? Well, most of us aren't raised
with good communication skills. Some of it is
the shit you've been through in prior relationships,
and that is real. That is valid. But
that does not get to be the excuse
you carry with you for the rest of
your fucking life and still expect to have
healthy relationships.
Right. It's not gonna fucking work. You're gonna
have to work through that. And now working
through it is gonna look different for everybody.
I don't know how to tell you how
to work through it. I
for all that I some days, I'm like,
I have totally worked through it. And then
I'll come across something, and I'm like, why
am I struggling to say the thing? Yeah.
It's not that the struggle
to say the thing goes away. It's the
awareness that I am struggling. And that awareness
is information to tell me something's going on
here.
And then I go and do the introspective
thing of
why am I struggling? How can I get
around the struggle? So
I almost did it recently.
Not in the for the way we used
to. So,
typically, if I am physically writing out or
typing out my thoughts to JB, it's because
we are in conflict, and we're not really
hearing each other very well anymore. Mhmm. And
I need to take the space and time
to get it all out of my head,
edit it, clarify it, get rid of the
run on sentences, all the umms, likes, and
trains of thought that will happen when I
speak,
and get it as clear as I can
and hand it off to him.
And then let
him consume that information and digest it away
from me. That is typically while I why
I will write out my thoughts and share
them with JB.
That is a thing we still use today.
It started when it was hard for me
to have conversations. Right? Yep.
Recently, I was having a moment where and
I don't even remember what it's about now.
I think we we solved it. It got
resolved, but I was struggling to communicate.
Proof that that struggle does not just go
away, but my awareness of the struggle is
the skill I've gained.
And I thought for a brief moment, oh,
maybe I need to write this out. Because
the moment I recognized the struggle, I was
like, what am I gonna do about it?
Is do I need to have this conversation?
Do I need to say this? And I
was like, yeah. This seems pretty important to
me. We need to have the I need
to tell him this thing,
but I'm
I can't seem to get the words out.
I can't seem to, like, sit and I
think we I think we ended up just
having the conversation. I felt better about it
a day or 2 later. But I was
like, you know what I could do if
I need to? I'll just write it down.
So
you have to find your way to work
through that and work through whatever it is
that holds you back from being
able to communicate. Because if you cannot
figure out how to fucking communicate in your
power exchange,
nobody is is getting out of that one
on stage. You're in deep doo doo.
Right. It's gonna you're gonna ruin something that
could be great. Mhmm. You're gonna cause harm
when you don't mean to. Right. Harm is
going to be caused to you that might
have been avoidable.
Like, just
Yeah. A lot of things. And you can't
give or receive
full consent
if you cannot talk about the things
that are being consented to. Mm-mm.
And you can't withdraw consent if you're not
willing to speak up and say, in whatever
form it takes, I withdraw consent.
I don't wanna do this. I don't like
this.
No. For me, it's red, and we actually
use it in everyday conversation
because, again, it's we need to do this
topic. It's a shorthand.
We know red is our safe word. Red
means
not just no, but hell no. Stop right
now. Mhmm. So when we're talking about things
that aren't even about kink,
not about fuckery,
partly because every part of our life is
touched by our power exchange in some way.
If he says something I don't like, I'm
like, I know I'm not doing that. Red.
Red. Red. Red. Red. And he knows exactly
what I mean. Now that might mean we
have a deeper conversation later. It might mean
we giggle about it, and we move on
and he never brings that topic up again.
You're not going there again. Right? But he
does the same thing to me. I'll mention
something of, hey, daddy, could we, would you,
I'd like, and if he's a hell no,
we'll go
red, what the hell? And then usually follow
it up with a a hell no.
And and we can we can we do
that in our everyday, you know, communication as
well
to make it clear what the fuck we
mean.
What that's gonna look like for you, how
you're gonna get there,
how
vigorous that's gonna be or not
is dependent upon
who you are, how you're wired, your partner,
how they're wired, how that interacts together, what
you find that works for both of you.
Mhmm. But you are not gonna get out
of
fully
the never having to say the thing.
Doesn't work. Does not work. You cannot give
informed and enthusiastic consent. You never fucking talk
about it. Mhmm. True. True.
Yeah.
There you go.
I didn't know I was gonna scream at
you all for an hour. I'm so sorry.
I think it's because
folks who even if you're still in that
stage of figuring it out, practicing the skills,
navigating
the stuff that's difficult,
most responsible adults fucking get it. But I
just
we see just enough
of folks who don't want to, wish they
didn't have to, refuse to
learn the importance of communication in order to
be able to give and receive full consent,
that it's just it's it's frustrating because it's
dangerous.
Like,
you know,
I it's probably my literal brain. It
But when I think about safety and risk,
I forget
that we all have our own
level of how much risk we can accept.
Mhmm. And so if I say something's risky,
I forget
that that does that people don't
some people will go,
that's too small of a risk for me
to care about, and, also,
that's too much of a risk for me
to, like,
move forward. I tend to be a it's
too much of a risk for me to
move forward. Like, I forget that there's all
this nuance at risk, and I'm like, that's
risky. Be careful.
And I know that there are some people
out there who are just
they're raw dogging life in a way that
I could never. Right? They're like, yeah. Sure.
Sure. There's a risk. I don't actually care.
But you know what?
That,
I could not imagine.
I don't think that's safe. I don't think
that's best practice.
But if you can have that full conversation
with a partner
and explain your thinking and they can accept
that thinking and you're both those fucking risk
takers together,
just
okay.
But yeah. Yeah.
So, anyway, my throat now hurts. I think
I sucked down on my diet Coke.
Oh, yeah. You did.
Put the big block of ice in there
now. I know. I will say we really,
truly
only touched on high points. Yeah. And main
big points of the consent
conversation
because it is involved and it is nuanced
and it can be nuanced.
So if you're like, yeah, but I have
thoughts about blah or what about blah,
the links to all the times we've so
far talked about consent
since 2015
are in the places and feel free to
to deep dive and, you know,
get more information or get more perspective or
whatever whatever.
The one thing and it didn't really fit
here,
but I I'm kind of thinking of I
right before we started streaming,
Eevee's latest video popped up in my feed.
And
I did not watch it, so I'm paraphrasing
my memory of what it was about. But,
basically, it was sort of this
commentary on a a lot of things that
are I too am seeing online about people
just acting like we're not people involved in
kink can't possibly consent to things. And everything
is too dangerous, and everything is air quote
abuse because it's impossible to consent to things.
And these are things that reasonable people absolutely
can and do consent to.
And that's the other side of the consent
conversation
Yeah. That there will absolutely be people that
you know, that you come across, that strangers
and randos,
will tell you that you are not allowed
to consent to something.
And that is a
frustrating
part of the experience.
And it's gonna give you practice at ignoring
people whose opinions do not matter. Right. My
first rule of that is,
do you help me pay the mortgage?
Did you take my kid to a doctor's
appointment?
Do you even know my legal name and
my phone number to text me? Your opinion
does not matter that much,
so not worried about it. But it takes
a while to get there too. Yeah. But
that's the other part where we're working so
hard, and we as the kink community, we
as us, y'all out there in your own
relationships,
we're working so hard to make sure that
we're establishing
consent. We're maintaining consent. We're being as ethical
and risk aware as we can humanly possibly
be, and there will still be some part
of the world that that will infantilize us
so much that you can't possibly consent to
that.
And
that's a different conversation. Go watch Evie's video,
y'all.
I'm pretty sure she has said very intelligent
things about it. I will just sound like
a rambly train wreck. None of us need
more of that until next week at least.
So yeah. But yeah. This is a big
topic. So It is.
Anyway
Anyhooz.
I guess we should do a bonus section
now. Okay. So, are we good now?
Oh no. Give me another hour. I'll rant.
I'll keep going. I'll keep going. I'll get
my blood pressure up some other way. Alright.
That's fine. Time to be done then. Okay.
Okay.
You
ready? Sure.
Keep it kinky, y'all. I'll see you next
week. Do I try it again? Try that
again. Are you gonna edit it out? No.
Damn. Okay.
Keep it kinky, y'all. Oh, see you next
week.
Yeah. Can we talk to the crickets? Yes.
See, here's the thing. He was listening for
my intake of breath, and I was listening
for his intake of breath, and we weren't
breathing at the same rate. No. We weren't.
You're you're off on a tangent all your
own right now, kid. Look. I warned you.
I know. The brain is doing
I don't
know. I don't know. I know. I know.
I don't know. And maybe it was good.
So okay. Did I mention this at the
top of anything? I can't remember. So if
it's a repeat, just know I'm a repeater.
My
trying to speak
earlier was very difficult
because I was so I was trying so
hard to hold on to the thought before
it could, like, fly away.
That I wasn't taking a breath in the
middle of a rambly
thought that I was expressing.
And so I would get to multiple the
end of multiple thoughts and then could not
breathe and was gasping
breath. Mhmm. And I was very worried about
this episode because, 1, I care about doing
the series well,
and 2, I care about this topic and
trying to do it,
air quote, well.
So I got real nervous that I was
gonna just be gasping my way through the
I should have realized
that
I get gaspy when I rant,
and that's okay. That's part of the rant.
And that this I should have realized this
topic was gonna make me rant. Mhmm. Because
when it comes to consent, here's the thing.
When everybody's doing it to the best
of their ability and it's mostly working okay
for everybody, there's there's not much to talk
about. Yeah. You're doing consent well. Woo hoo.
Keep going. But man, when people fuck it
up,
there's a lot to rant about.
Just
saying. So, anyway,
bonus section time.
The 14 year old is now the 15
year old. Yeah.
And every time I tell somebody else, like,
I reminded his older brother, your your brother
is 15 now. He's like, no. The fuck
he's not. I'm like, yeah. Fuck yes.
Y'all all just keep growing up. I don't
know what that's about.
Or reminiscing with my mom about
when the 15 year old was, like, a
mere infant.
It's like, what the fuck? Where's time going?
Right. Now he's the tallest human in this
house.
Which does come in handy for some things.
Does come in handy. Yep.
He,
I think he's in a mostly good place
mentally and physically now for the school year,
so that's nice.
He is waiting on part of his birthday
present. My poor mother.
She's okay. So
it's a
family tradition we laugh about.
No. My mother and I, we're going to
be late with birthdays,
presents for Christmas, whatever. Like, we we know
they
excuse me. We know they exist. We have
them written down in 80 places, but time
has no fucking meaning.
And the calendar gets away from us. So
she has
since she retired and, you know, the thing
that consumed most of her thought process, her
60 hour plus a week job is done,
she has made it a point to try
to be, if not early for gift giving
times,
on time.
So I sent her some info about what
the kid had asked for and would like
as gifts,
And she ordered one thing, like, a full
week and a half, 2 weeks before his
birthday. It didn't have to be custom made
or it was like buy it, ship it.
It's there in a few days.
It doesn't arrive. It doesn't arrive. She's like,
you sure? I'm like, I'm positive.
I go check with JB. I'm like, you
didn't hide a thing in a closet waiting
to read her out, but nope.
So she goes and checks her tracking. She's
like,
it shows that it should have been there
on the 3rd or that it was there
on 3rd. And I'm like, no. We did
not get anything on the fucking 3rd.
So then she starts sending me the actual
tracking information, and I look. It got returned
to sender
and received by said sender
on 9th.
And we're like, what the hell happened? I
was like, we've been getting mail misdelivered to
us. That's not
our package.
We've had some replacement mail carriers. Our our
person was has been back the past couple
of days. Thank god.
And so, like, JB's had to drive down
somebody's, like,
food order
down the street. Yeah. Our neighbor's,
medication came in the mail. It was in
our mailbox. We're like, let's get back to
her really quickly.
So I was like, did somebody get our
mail? And instead of just driving it up
the fucking block to us, they just returned
to sender. Maybe.
Then late,
not last night, night before last, sometime.
I look she sends me the the the
email she's got with, like, the full information.
And I finally look, and I'm like, fuck.
Our ZIP code's wrong.
She'd been filling out the information. And my
aunt and uncle also live in the same
town we live in, but we have 2
different ZIP codes. Her autofill
on the full put in our ZIP code.
And so I'm sure the post office is
who returned it to this. So then she's
emailing this customer support and cc ing me.
She's like,
this is a birthday present for my grandson,
and and I just wanna give it to
him and whatever we have to do. I'll
pay whatever. And I'm like, you are not
a good negotiator.
So now they've said it can take up
to 2 weeks to reprocess and resend out,
and she's and she just keeps apologizing. It's
fine. You
it happens. It's no big deal. Well, now
the 15 year old's like, well, will you
at least tell me what my present is?
I'm like, nope. Nope. No. It's gotta be
a surprise.
It looks like his birthday card from his
grandmother might also have been lost in the
mail. She sent that
last
Tuesday or Wednesday. Oh, gosh.
She's only a couple states over. It does
not take a week for an envelope to
get to us. No. No. No.
So, yeah, I was like, thank god we
managed to. Did we wrap his birthday present?
No. No. The box was like Massive.
Half as big as JB. Like, it it's
huge.
It came up to your waist. It Yeah.
It was huge. 2 of us carried in
are like, we love you. Happy birthday. We
were not rapping this thing. He got a
gaming chair. He's very excited. I sat in
that thing today. Did you?
A chair with support?
What? I don't even remember what that's like.
I have to try it. I may have
to try it at some point. Yeah. The
youngest has spent most of his life getting
hand me downs,
mostly from his brother.
And his brother has spent up until, like,
probably high school years getting hand me downs
from us.
So what would happen, and the the reason
he got a gaming chair for his birthday,
was the, like, office desk chair that he
had been using in his bedroom
was your old chair. It was my old
chair that had been handed down to the
oldest. And then when the oldest
went on to call it, then it got
passed down to the And I think youngest.
We've had that chair for at least as
long as we've lived together. Maybe long yeah.
Maybe long. So at least a decade. Mhmm.
So he finally he finally got his own
chair
that never had anybody's butt in it but
his Right. Till I sat down in it.
That's fine. Yeah.
So, yeah, it was it was funny.
But,
yeah. So he's it we keep things low
key. He is
that
kid after my own heart. You're not singing
happy birthday to him. He's like, I will
leave this space, and we will forget that
it's my birthday to that singer. To tell
him, okay. You don't wanna sing. What about
the spoken word? I know. And I did
ask him. I'm like, can I say the
happy birthday song to you? Because I don't
like to birthday to you. Right. He's gonna
do a dramatic
telling.
I'm like, I'll just say the words.
Because the thing is I don't like being
sung to either. Like,
I want to scream. It's almost
maybe
as bad, worse than, it depends on the
day, as hearing the sound of chewing. Like,
it's right up there with, like, a just
a nightmare to my ears.
So I get it, and I respect it.
It's like,
this this is a birthday? Okay. It's his
birthday, and he's happy, and that's all that
matters.
But yeah. So now he's fucking 15. Jesus
Christ. He's 15. Yeah.
Oh, we got this gaming chair on sale
from Staples.
Yeah. The sale, I think, runs through the
month of September if anybody's looking for a
chair. It was a $130.
We technically could have
found it online cheaper, but then they all
the places that were cheaper the shipping. The
shipping made it more expensive. I was like,
we'll just go to Staples. Yeah. It's fine.
Mhmm.
I think it was like regular, almost 200.
I think so. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe I
was looking for one time line.
But yeah. So we we did the birthday
thing. Mhmm.
Been working.
I did take half a day off. It
was like
every
thought I had was, like, thinking through mud,
and I was like, let me just do
the things I have to do.
Yeah. Let's take advantage of the fact that
we work for ourselves. Let's let's just do
that for once without the guilt of, should
I always be producing every moment of every
day?
One day I'll go to therapy for that.
What else?
It's
kind of been it. Yeah.
Yeah. So,
Master Frostbite and live chats. Like, we have
a restaurant here called Montana's. They will put
moose antlers on your head and sing happy
birthday.
In our family, if we happen to actually
go out to eat
on our birthdays,
we threaten each other with physical harm if
somebody's like, this is such and such as
birthday. Like, you're not putting a sombrero on
my head at the Mexican restaurant. I was
gonna say, yeah. There there's the one Mexican
restaurant here by us. They have the, birthday
sombrero. And then I
don't need to be perceived that much. I
don't want strangers to sing at me. Mhmm.
I don't I don't wanna be in that.
I just I that sounds like a nightmare.
No. No. And there have been times JB
would tease and go, I'll tell him it's
your birthday. I'm like, I will pull my
driver's license out and prove you a liar.
Don't mess with me.
Red. Okay.
I do not fucking consent to that.
Oh my god. Like, I woman. Get a
little sweaty just even thinking about it. No.
No. There were
when,
I lived up in the Panhandle. There was
a restaurant. It was locally owned restaurant.
It was one of those that, like, in
the eighties nineties, they've been, like, the best
place in town. And
by the early odds, it it kinda
was looking its age.
But, you know, still a respected place in
town. We would go for, like, corporate stuff.
And if they knew it was your birthday,
they like to do what a lot of
restaurants do is
come out in a big old long train
of servers, clapping their hands and
singing.
I was like, but they would always end
the happy birthday song with and many more
at Coachin' 4. That's the name of the
restaurant, it's Coachin' 4.
And so we did enough things with that
restaurant
that I heard that little tail end of
the song often enough that for literal years,
if I was part of a group that
was singing happy birthday, of which I hate
to be singing happy birthday, but sometimes You
you automatically added that And people will be
looking at me like, what the fuck are
you talking? I'm like, look. They had great
steak. They were overly enthusiastic about your birthday.
Yeah. No. I,
I look back at a time in my
life.
I'm like, yeah. I did used to participate
in group singing, and
you could sing happy birthday to me. And
I hated it, but I would smile real
big. And now I'm I'm at a point
in my life. I'm like, I'm not faking
it. I fucking hate that shit. Don't do
it.
I don't care how happy it makes
you.
Alright.
Anyway Yep.
Yeah.
So that was that, and this is awesome.
Yeah. And here we are. Lola is fully
on her back.
Her jowls are hanging in such a way
because gravity
Legs are up in the air. That you
can see all her little teethies.
She is a goofball and precious. Very comfortable.
And I think she's staring at us like,
do you see me? Do you see me?
Oh my gosh. Okay.
Alright.
We, we can go and do our thing.
And,
hopefully, me yelling at some folks, you know,
has been helpful. And if not helpful, at
least entertaining.
And we'll be back next week. Mhmm. Do
it again. Yep. Okay.
Okay. Bye.