Consent in D/s Relationships | Back to Basics

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 show notes are found at lovingbdsm.net. Come back often and feel free to add the podcast to your favorite podcast app. Can also follow the show on Fetlife at loving

BDSM PC. The PC is dance for podcast. On Instagram and technically threads at that handle, I will forever fucking hate for as long as I shall live. Loving d s and the number one. So it's at loving d s one. I hate that handle. Or on YouTube at youtube.com/loving BDSM, where you can watch us live stream 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, access to membership and apps and courses and, oh my, for only $99, and only until Wednesday, September 18th. So if this is of interest to you, you need to jump on it as soon

as you can. So it's only $99, but if you had to buy everything in it, that would be, $22100. So it really is a huge, huge discount. We have included for this year a brand new workbook that is not even available on our Etsy shop yet, y'all. It's called Punishment and Rewards, Finding What's Right for Your DS Relationship. It is a bigger, badder, better version of what we released, for the virtual summit earlier this year. So it's the full thing. You don't have to

watch a video. You don't have to do any of that. You just can use the workbook and figure out if punishment rewards are right for your power exchange. But we are not the end all be all. There's so much more and so many other people as involved in The King Bundle. Some of whom include folks like Sunny Megatron and Evie Lupine and our dear friend, Princess Rara of The Pink King Podcast.

Topics, that are covered in The King Bundle, dirty talk, pervertibles, puppy play, BDSM, and ADHD, and how those two things can, like, go together. Commingle. OMG, and so much more, so much more. So 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 notes, plus it's in this week's email newsletter, plus it's all over our social media. We're

posting it everywhere we can. So if your podcast app does not, like, show the show 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.