December 21, 2022 • 49 mins
This week, Emily answers a question from her producer, Mo, about consent. Mo and her girlfriend are considering a new sexual experience but they’re not both an “enthusiastic yes” on the idea. Mo’s girlfriend joins the conversation, and they delve into the idea of “enthusiastic maybe” in consent and how to handle all the comfortable, joyful, and consensual “maybes” that can come up in sex. A heads up before listening: in this conversation, we touch on difficult topics such as coercion and manipulation in sex. If this episode brings up some feelings for you, check out our resources below.
If you have a question for Emily, call the Come As You Are hotline at (646) 397-8557 or send a voice memo to emily@pushkin.fm. Tell us your pronouns and pseudonym (pick a name, any name!) Your question might be answered on the show.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
“ACE: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire Society” by Angela Chen
Emily learned the language of “willing consent” from Suzanne Iasenza
For more on “human givers” and “human winners” read “Burnout”
Emily’s definition of consent: “Everyone is glad to be there and free to leave with no unwanted consequences. Plus, there is no unwanted pain.”
CONSENT AND SURVIVOR RESOURCES:
RAINN on consent and information for sexual assault survivors
National Sexual Violence Resource Center
Me Too Movement Resource Library
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. Hey everybody, this is a heads up that this
episode includes discussions of sexual consent or lack thereof, so
keep that in mind when you're listening. Yeah, we're going
to be talking specifically about the maybes that come up
in sex and how to navigate those, which, to be clear,
(00:35):
is different from coercion and manipulation in sex, but we
do talk about those topics too. So if this episode
brings up some feelings for you, we have resources in
our show notes. Okay, now onto the episode. Yi, Hi, Hi,
(00:56):
and I'm calling in. I have a question for you.
There has to be another way to teach consent that
does not you know, just use the word yes as
a stand in for consent. Amo, is this actually just
from you? Is this are you asking me for a friend?
(01:18):
How do you know? I am actually asking this question
for me and my girlfriend. I love that. It's a
dream come true. If I do nothing else with this podcast,
I want to make your personal sex life better. I'm
Emmily Nagaski and this is the Come as you Are
podcast where I answer questions about sex with science. In
(01:43):
this episode, we're talking about consent, and this is an
advanced class in consent where we talk about all the
nuances and power dynamics, and I want to introduce a
concept I call the enthusiastic maybe all the comfortable, joyful,
consensual maybes insects and how to navigate those. And here
(02:07):
with me is the one and only producer mo Hi Emily. Hello.
So this topic listeners might look at it and think, oh,
I understand consent completely. It's yes and no. It's black
and white. At least that is what I learned about
consent on a college campus in twenty fifteen. I was
(02:28):
taught that the only kind of consent is a verbal
enthusiastic yes. Yeah. If it's not an enthusiastic yes, then
it's an enthusiastic no. That seems to be yeah what
young sex educators are teaching now. I recently took my
first foray into TikTok sex education because you told me
there were sex educators on TikTok, and the very first
(02:50):
video I saw was like, enthusiastic consent is the only consent.
I'm sure you are extremely familiar with the enthusiastic yes
model because you were a peer educator on college campuses,
right yep, back in the mid nineties, I was, and
what I learned to teach was yes means yes. No
means no, silence means no, maybe means no, I'm not
(03:12):
sure means no. Only yes means yes. So to help
explain this sort of enthusiastic consent, you say yes when
you want to, When you have no fear of the
consequences of saying yes or the consequences of saying no.
You are fully free, right, Like, it's not only that
both people are at a yes. You are enthusiastic about
(03:35):
the sex. You're super excited about the sex you're having.
There's a simplicity to the enthusiastic yes is the only
kind of consent. And I can see why that is
so important for people who are just starting out of
having sex to learn, like enthusiastic yes, Like that's a
great place to start, but it can't be the end
(03:57):
of the conversation. I really think it's just the beginning
of the conversation about consent. And like you said, enthusiastic yes,
it doesn't encompass the comfortable and consensual maybees that do
come up insects. Yea, And that is what I want
(04:17):
to talk about with you today. It just pop my
Lacroix Open Delicious. We're not sponsored by Lacroix. I'm just
a stereotype. Okay, Emily, are you ready to hear more
about my question? I am, I'm ready. As you know,
we spend a lot of time together answering questions from
people who call into the hotline. So recently we were
(04:40):
talking about this concept of the enthusiastic maybe. I was like,
hot day, that's new information for me, and I really
love it. And then I realized, like, wait, my girlfriend
and I are currently in a situation where we need
help navigating and enthusiastic maybe in our relationship. So how
(05:00):
do you feel about helping us? I consent enthusiastically so cheesy. Okay,
So my girlfriend Alex Air quotes Alex. It's going to
come on the episode a little bit later so you
can hear from both of our perspectives. But for now,
(05:20):
let me just summarize the situation up at the top.
Alex and I were invited to an orgy. Okay, it
is our first time being invited to an orgy, and
it's a queer like ABCD party anybody but assistudes, and
it's organized by one of our friends who's like this
queer power connector and there's a Google form where you
(05:43):
fill out your vaccination status and it has all this
safety information. But here's our question. So we would only
go together. There is not a world where one of
us would go without the other one. Now I am
an enthusiastic Yes, I want to go. I'm feeling like yolo.
It sounds super fun, sounds hot. I love it. But
(06:07):
my girlfriend Alex is less sure. They're definitely curious about going,
but they're nervous. So the orgy is coming up in
a few weeks, and every time we talk about if
we're gonna go, we just like, uh, we don't know
we're gonna do. We get stuck at this place where
Alex is like maybe, but I'm scared, and I'm like,
(06:29):
you don't have to go, and they're like, but I
kind of want to. I'm just scared, and we get
like we just hit an impass and we say like, Okay,
we'll come back to this tomorrow. But it actually seems
like we are not equipped to have the level of
conversation that we need to have. And like we said
in the beginning of this episode, everything I have learned
(06:50):
about consent up until this point is like, if it's
not an enthusiastic yes from everybody involved, then it can't happen. Period.
And you know, Alex is curious and interested but unsure,
like they are ultimately a maybe. So the first part
of our question is like, how do we actually handle
(07:13):
a maybe in real life? And the second part of
our question is that if we go, we're like, oh shit,
this is going to be the consent Olympics. Not that
it's a competition, of course, but I just mean that
we're going to an orgy for the first time together.
So if we go, we'll be navigating like our different
(07:34):
levels of comfort and enthusiasm. And it seems like the
kind of situation where we will need to be constantly
evaluating and communicating the consent that we have with each
other and any new consent that we might be bringing
in if you know there's someone else involved. It's like, Okay,
if we're going to go to the consent Olympics, we
(07:56):
need a session with a trainer. Yeah, this is an
advanced consent situation, not for beginners. And I feel so
thrilled that I get to help you work out this situation.
And I gotta say, like, if you're listening and thinking, oh,
I'm never going to go to an orgy, so this
isn't applicable to me. I really think that this concept
(08:19):
of enthusiastic maybe is applicable in so many other situations. Yeah, Like,
I think it's really common whenever one partner wants to
try something new, Like let's say one partner wants to
try watching point together or having anal sex, having a threesome.
I think these are really common, and I think those
(08:40):
are all times where an enthusiastic maybe might apply. And
that's part of the same conversation that we're having here. Yeah,
so let's do this thing. Where should we start. Let's
begin by making sure everybody's got the very basic basics,
which is by saying that consent is the starting line,
(09:01):
not the finish line. We want to bring our partners pleasure.
We want to share pleasure. We want to have good sex,
great sex, or brain melting sex. Right. We don't want
to listen to a sex podcast to learn to have
bare minimum consensual sex. We don't want our partner to
wake up at the morning and say, hmmm, last night
was so consensual, right, I mean no, we definitely want
(09:25):
that we definitely don't want the alternative, But I mean,
is that your standard for a great night that was consensual? Yeah? No,
If I had hot sex, it was consensual sex. Yeah. Yeah.
So when I was teaching about responsive desire, remember we
had an episode on responsive desire, it's desire that emerges
(09:47):
in response to pleasure rather than in anticipation of pleasure,
it became clear that the conversation about consent needed to
be more nuanced than just enthusiastic. Yes, because the point
of responsive desire is your enthusiasm emerges only once you
have preheated the oven, right, you have to sort of
(10:08):
get start. And you and I have spent a lot
of time in this series talking about the dual control
model that breaks and the accelerator. Yeah, And for me,
one of the key things about the dual control model
is it tells us why and how ambivalence is normal.
We are often in context that are full of stuff
(10:29):
that activates the accelerator and also stuff that hits the breaks.
So you imagine you're just at the generic party and
you're making out and turned on and lots of accelerator
is happening, but also you're here in public, and that
doesn't seem okay, and let's go somewhere else, right accelerator
and breaks at the same time, or you're in bed
together and it's super hot, but not unless you've got
(10:52):
a condom, my friend. Just living in the intensely sex
negative world that many of us live in, a lot
of us have culturally imposed shame hitting our breaks kind
of all the time, so our enthusiasm is always held
back by that feeling that we're not even supposed to
(11:13):
be enthusiastic for sex, except that if we're enthusiastic, that's
the only time that we're allowed to have the sex.
And if you can't get to enthusiasm, then you shouldn't
even me saying yes. Yeah, an enthusiastic yes is like
a high bar. Yeah. We call it the gold standard.
Another thing I've been thinking about is a lot of
times the level of conversation about consent gets brought down,
(11:36):
you know, to be a conversation directed at that person
who needs to hear like don't assault someone. And obviously
I understand why the conversation is catered to that person
because they really need to hear that message. But at
the same time, if the only conversations we have are
(11:59):
the ones that are catered to that person that needs
to hear, you know, how to not be violent. Then
we're losing so much nuance about power, communication, gender, all
the things that play into consent. Yeah. One thing that's
really interesting to me is like how the cultural definition
(12:21):
of consent has changed over time. This is my women's
Studies degree coming out. But you know, for my grandmother
it was in nineteen fifty it was like, there is
no such thing as consent within a marriage. If you
got married, you're consenting, yea. And for my mom in
the seventies, there was like some no means no jargon.
(12:42):
And then for me when I got to college, there
was like enthusiastic verbal yes yes means yes. So I
was wondering if you could like give me a little
cultural history of the definitions of consent. Yeah, that basically
tracks in my original training in the mid nineties, I
was taught yes means yes, everything else means no, and
(13:04):
that was still pretty progressive at the time. Let me
add that marital rape was only finally outlawed everywhere in
the United States when I was in high school in
the early nineties. Oh, we have come a long way
fast your grandmother might even be legally correct that there
(13:25):
was no such thing as non consensual married sex. Yeah,
about your right, I mean in Louisiana in nineteen fifty four.
On the one hand, we've come a long way fast,
and on the other hand, a lot of this stuff
just clings like it will not let go. So about
ten years ago, it was actually exactly ten years ago,
I started talking about willing consent in addition to enthusiastic consent,
(13:51):
to make space for responsive desire. I learned this language
of willing consent from a sex therapist, Susanna i Assenza,
who's in New York City, but a student of mine.
Felt like the word willing leaves too much room for
interpretation of like willingness could be like, oh, yes, okay,
I guess like that's willingness, like if you must, or
(14:12):
you're like you have a sense of obligation, rather than sure,
let's see what happens, which is what I mean when
I say willing. So we sort of decided that open
or openness has a warmer connotation of readiness, appreciation, poorousness connection.
I've been trying to make it even simpler over the
last ten years. So I booled it down to this,
(14:35):
that the key is for everyone to be glad to
be there and free to leave with no unwanted consequences.
Plus there's no one wanted pain. And when I say
no one wanted consequences, of course, I mean no one
wanted physical consequences obviously, but also no social consequences, no
(14:57):
emotional consequences. The relationship is not at all at stake.
No one has anything to lose, No one will judge
you for stopping. Everyone will be completely fine with whatever happens,
because what matters most to everyone involved is that everyone
has a good time. Oh my god, Okay, glad to
be there, free to leave without fear of any unwanted consequences.
(15:23):
I love that definition. I mean, obviously there can be
physical consequences and violence for saying no, but I also
think we don't talk enough about emotional punishment for saying no.
Like let's say your partner gets mad at you or
gives you this silent treatment or shuts down, Like those
(15:46):
are all unwanted consequences that I think sometimes people fear
when they're they're doing that mental calculus if like do
I want to do this or am I just like
acquiescing because I don't want to have to deal with
the unwanted consequences of saying no. And I know that
this is a very binary way to look at it,
(16:07):
but like, just having had sex with s for a
few years of my life, I'm like, the amount of
temper tantrums I had to deal with because they didn't
get the sex they wanted is unbelievable. Like so many
men are really out there acting like that all the time.
And that I think, you know, free to leave without
(16:29):
fear of unwanted consequence is like a very overdue addition
to the definition of consent exactly. Yeah, And there's actually
a lot of advancement happening in this conversation from a
relatively surprising source. The asexual community has really been at
the forefront of broadening this definition of consent. A few
(16:51):
months ago, I got to talk to the journalist and
editor Angela Chen. She's asexual, and she wrote a book
called Ace What Asexuality Reveals about Desire, society, and the
meaning of sex. She said this thing about consent that
I really love. She said, the idea that enthusiastic consent
is the only real consent. It essentially cast doubt on
(17:12):
the ability of aces of asexual people to give consent. Uh.
Because so, for a really quick primer, asexuality is a
sexual orientation where you were not sexually attracted to anyone,
but there are sex favorable asexual folks who may say
(17:33):
a willing or open yes. Uh huh. I'm also thinking
about sex work and sex workers who are consenting, but
they might not be enthusiastic. Yeah. A lot of us
show for work not enthusiastic. Yeah. I'm really glad you
brought up the ace community, the asexual community, and Angela
(17:54):
Tan in particular, because I think it underscores this important
point that, like enthusiastic consent is too blunt of an
instrument to try to put onto everyone's personal definitions of
what consent feels like to them. Another thing I've been
thinking about is this antiquated hetero cultural script that is
(18:16):
still out there that says, like, to be a quote
unquote good sexual partner, then you need to be willing
to try the things your partner wants to try. I
struggle with that because obviously sometimes people might fit into
that model when they're feeling like enthusiastic maybe yeah, But
(18:37):
I think other times that model leaves so much room
for like pressure and coercion and emotional manipulation like oh,
if you're going to be a good partner to me,
I need you to do X, y Z. Thing that
is not the equivalent of the enthusiastic Maybe. That's like
a sort of cultural script that could overlap with the
(18:57):
enthusiastic maybe, but also could overlap with a much darker
and non consensual situation. Yes, that is exactly where the
sort of dinesses. And I just again love the definition
you have about free to leave without fear of unwanted
consequences because it acknowledges like the power dynamics and the
(19:22):
motivations behind the words yes and no. Yes, that's exactly
the goal, because it's true that in the real world,
not everyone is equally free to say yes or no. Right.
In Burnout, the book that I write with my sister,
we describe the social expectations for anyone assigned the It's
(19:43):
a Girl package of rules and regulations. We say that
we are assigned the role of being human givers, and
we are expected to be at all times without fail. Ready,
here's the list. Yes, hit it with the list eily
morally obligated to be pretty happy yet calm, generous, and
attentive to the needs of other thing. So if someone
(20:08):
is aessing their internal experience, they may notice it. On
the one hand, they're not really interested in like what
their partners doing and like it could be better, and
also they feel a moral obligation to make their partner
happy and make sure their needs are met. So even
a situation that everyone is glad to be there, but
maybe your partners touch you in a way that's very
(20:29):
well intentioned, but it's just not doing it for you,
and your partner goes, do you like that? What do
we say as human givers? Yeah, we're like, yeah, yeah,
rather than saying actually a little pressure and a little
little little more speed would be bad. We don't want
(20:53):
to hurt our partners feelings or make them feel criticized totally.
And then on the other side, there's the of the binary,
there's the people assigning. It's a boy package of rules
and regulations. I've started to call them the human winners
because they're allowed to feel horny, winning and angry and
that's it. But above all, they're supposed to know everything
(21:15):
about sex already without ever asking questions or making mistakes
from receiving any feedback, so they're trained to be sensitive
to hearing their partners say a little more pressure and
a little more speed, and you're basically criticizing their entire identity.
(21:35):
And this goes back to the timber tantrum thing, like
this gender rules thing. It helps explain why some sis
men do this, but it does not excuse it. And
people of all genders can react that way when they
don't get what they want in sex. It's a it's
a twisted mess. And then everyone else, the trans folks,
(21:56):
non binary folks, a gender folks, are fed these same
binary rules yeah, and have to negotiate with their own
internal beliefs about what these mean for them and get
clear with their partners about what it means. This is
a miss. Nobody's free and basically, can we all get
our collective act together and quit it with the gender nonsense? Right?
(22:20):
I mean, a real complex conversation about consent has to
include this conversation about gender roles, about motivations, internal scripts,
and even within all of those layers, there's that surprising
analogy you explain to me about consent being like tea.
It's imperfect, but I like it. So can you explain
(22:40):
the tea analogy a little bit? Yeah, So this was
a really viral thing. In twenty fifteen, there was this
blog from Rockstar Dinosaur Pirate Princess comparing sexual consent to tea,
and they were like, we can all understand that if
you offer a person a cup of tea and they
say no, you do not require them to drink tea.
(23:00):
And if they say yes, and you spend the time
boiling the water and brewing the tea and you bring
it to them and they change their mind, you still
don't insist that they the tea. Even though you went
to all that trouble you made it they decided not
to drink it all well, And because the person has
come over to your house and had tea with you
several times before, that does not mean there any obligation
to come and have tea with you again. And for sure,
(23:23):
if they like pass out between the time they said
yes to tea and the time you bring them the tea,
you don't pour tea down their throat. We can all
get that, right, yep. One thing I do like about
the tea analogy is that it helps frame consent as
an ongoing conversation. I love that, and it also is
a very easy way to understand that consent to tea
(23:47):
isn't consent to biscuits. And honestly, in twenty fifteen, that
was a really important language for a lot of people.
It went superviral for a reason because it was so straightforward,
but it did leave out some really important subtleties, Like
I was thinking, Okay, so suppose person A offers tea.
(24:09):
It's a person be Yeah, what are all the things
that might be going through person Bee's head. Are they
thinking I want this person's company or approval or friendship.
I want to not be rude. I don't want to
hurt their feelings. I want to follow the rules of
this culture. Maybe I want to tell my friends that
I had tea with this person. You know, I would
(24:30):
like the sugar in the milk, but I don't want
any actual tea. So what I want is a world
where person B feels comfortable and confidence saying no, thank
you please to the tea. But I would enjoy seeing
what your tea cups look like and enjoying my own
cup of sugar and milk. Also, I would really love
(24:53):
to watch you drink tea. Yeah, okay, we need to
take a break. I need to run to the little
podcaster's room. And then when we get back, my girlfriend
Alex is going to come on the show and we
are going to get your advice, Emily on navigating this
(25:14):
enthusiastic maybe within our relationship, and we're going to get
some training lessons for the consent Olympics. All right, all right,
(25:34):
we are back and Emily is going to help me
and my girlfriend Alex navigate this question about should we
go to this orgy? Hi, Alex, not your real name, girlfriend. Hello,
thanks for coming and for calling in from the car
instead of taking your lunch break. You're the best. So
(25:56):
you want to introduce yourself? Yeah, hi everybody. I'm glad
to be here, glad to have your health. Emily answering
this question, my name is Alex. I'm non binary. I
use the then pronounced. But one of the great thing
about being queer and non binaries that you get to
choose the language that works for you, which is why
you know, Mo has been using the words like girlfriend
(26:17):
and like lesbian for our relationship. Those words are comfy
for us, so we use gendered language when it feels comfortable. Yeah, yeah,
that's me. I'm so excited. Thank you for helping us, Emily,
I'm so excited too. All right, let's do it. Let's
get right into it then, So Alex, can you start
by explaining how you're feeling about potentially attending this orgy
(26:39):
with me and any context, any set up you feel
you need to do. Okay, So, Mo and I have
been in a relationship for almost three years, and that's
been a monogamous relationship. We have not opened that relationship
and we've never had anyone else involved sexually in our relationship.
And then we have some really fun friends in our
(27:00):
lesbian friend group that have invited us to an orgy
later this month, and it seems like a really fun opportunity. Intellectually, wait,
really quick, what do you mean by you like the idea? Intellectually?
What does that mean? I like the idea of going
because how many times in my life am I going
to be invited to something like this? But when I
(27:23):
really think about it, I get really nervous because there's
so many unknown factors and I just don't know how
I'm going to feel when we're there, and I'm kind
of scared that unexpected feelings will come up, but most
seems a little bit more confident. I mean, yes, I
am an enthusiastic Yes, I'm excited to potentially go. But again, like,
(27:46):
this is a decision that we have to make together.
The only situation where we will go is one where
we are going together, and I want to make sure
that when you say maybe, like we really explore what
that actually means. So, first of all, do you have
a sense that Alex, it's okay for you to say
(28:08):
no to something when you feel ambivalent. That's a tricky question. Um.
I sometimes feel like I'm not sure if I'm saying
yes because it's you know, with within the context of
sex or not if I was or request made of me.
Sometimes I don't know if I'm saying yes because it's
truly something I want to do, or if it's something
(28:29):
I just feel obligated to do. You know. Being raised
in the South, um, with the what is the language
that you use, the female no, the I'm a girl package,
it's a girl packet. You were raised to be a lady.
It sounds like exactly, to be very polite and to
always accept the tea when it's offered. To you, um, etc. Yeah.
(28:52):
So I have a hard time, you know, deciphering what
I really want and what is expected of me. H,
that's so important and no one ever talks about it.
I'm so excited we're going there. Yeah. This is one
of the big reasons we wanted to talk to you, Emily,
is because we both identify as people pleasers. So when
(29:12):
Alex and I have been talking together about if we
want to go to this orgy, Alex, one thing I
have heard you say again and again is like that
you're worried it'll be rude if you go and you
say no to everyone except for me. Yeah, I mean, okay,
I've never done anything like this before. So one of
(29:34):
my questions, I guess, is like, is my attendance at
this party, this orgy implying consent to have sex with
anyone else who is there. I know, intellectually no, like
I should. I will be able to say no. I
have autonomy if somebody approaches me and I'm not interestood,
(29:54):
I can say like no, thank you. But like, there's
something in me that I just don't know what the
social rules of this space are. So that's one thing
that is scaring me is there a space where I
could just like Mo and I I could do our
own thing in one area of the room and then
kind of just like be witnessed and witness what else
(30:17):
is going on? Is that considered rude? Or are we
are we supposed to participate? Is everyone's supposed to have
equal participation? I guess I'm nervous about, like, because it
is a friend's house, a friend's party, and I'm used
to being a good house guest. You know what the
expectations are there. So really what you would like is
(30:38):
an Emily Post manual of etiquette that I'm pretty sure
Emily Posts does not have a chapter on orgy etiquette,
but the Emily Nagowski Guide is probably as close as
we're ever gonna get. Yeah, I loved etiquete manuals when
I was a kid. I'm super into that. And at
(30:59):
the same time, like, you would never go to a
party and have your attendance imply consent for any other
kind of behavior, Like if you come to this you
are definitely going to have at least four drinks, or
if you come to this party, you must eat the
shrim right. If you are really worried, ask the host
about the ground rules. We can do that. If there
(31:22):
are no ground rules, I'm going to say, don't go,
but I bet there are. And then also, when you
know what the ground rules are, talk about it between you,
make plans for the things that you expect might be
most comfortable or least comfortable. I would also say for
the two of you to have a plan for how
to stay attuned to Alex's level of ambivalence, so while
(31:47):
you're there, their level of ambivalence is going to move
around their level of comfort. And make a plan if
you can feel sort of an escalation of the jealousy
or the freak out or any of the other things,
like if surprising feelings come up, which probably it will
be surprising. And the great thing about a strong relationship,
(32:11):
mo is you're one hundred percent committed to prioritizing your
partners know above anything, right, Absolutely, Yes, of course, it
doesn't matter how into something you are. If your partner
comes over and says this is a no for me,
then it's a no for us, right you stop? Yeah, absolutely,
And I think you can do some test runs or
at least brainstormy. You can talk through the kinds of
(32:35):
things you might experience so MO as the less ambivalent
partner can say, Okay, so let's imagine someone invites me
to do something and have you watched What are some
things that I might do and how might you feel
about it? Or you could swap it around. Suppose someone
invites you, Alex to do something with me watching, or
suppose there's someone I'd like to connect with with you
(32:58):
talk through all those limits in an advance and think
through what those situations might feel and be like, yeah,
just sort of mix and match scenarios and then talk
through how we might react to them together in the moment. Yeah. Yeah.
For some reason, it feels like okay, touching body touching
(33:21):
feels okay, but like kissing someone else or like seeing
mo because someone else feels really intimate, Like yeah, I mean,
I'm just I'm pro titty touching, pro grinding, all of that.
Like it feels like, okay, you know, you're just dancing
in a club, like there's just a lot of people around.
Everybody's kind of bumping into each other. That feels fine,
(33:42):
and there feels like a sense of anonymity around that
even if I know those people but I don't know.
Kissing just feels so intimate to me and uniquely romantic. Okay,
see this is very good because we have never gotten
this specific before in the conversation, Like I'm totally down
to titty touch and grind, but not kiss other people.
(34:05):
It sounds amazing, sounds hot. Yeah, but then how do
we explain that to someone? So like if we were
to work through a scenario now, like, okay, we're have it,
we're doing our own thing, We're into each other at
this party, and someone comes up to us and says, oh,
can can I join you? Guys? How do we say, like, well, yes,
you can touch me in this way, in this way,
(34:26):
in this way, but not don't kiss me and don't
kiss her, but where you can watch us kiss. You know.
It's like feels like a lot of a lot of nose,
a lot of information. Yeah, that's why you know these
are advanced skills, right, because the question I'm asked all
the time is how do I ask my partner for
And this is the same, like how do I communicate
to somebody else at this party what our limits are?
(34:49):
And of course the answer is you just say, yeah,
our limits is we're only kissing each other on the mouth,
and nobody else we're into titty touching and to grinding.
If that sounds good for you, what are your rules? Right?
So the real question is not how do we do it?
Because how you do it is you just say it.
The question is what is it that's stopping you? What
(35:10):
is stopping you from saying? Right now, we are not
having tea, We are just having milk and sugar, and
we are collecting teacups. M What would have to happen
for you to feel comfortable speaking a boundary like that
out loud? That's a great question. Yeah, what would need
to happen? I think it would be helpful for us
to work through hypothetical scenarios and also just to have
(35:32):
a like an escape route. Heck, yes, you know, if
one of us is ready to go, we go. There's
no like negotiating like no, please, I really want to
you know, I don't know. Is that is that wrong?
To say no? No? That's great. It's called a hard no.
Hard limits. There are soft limits, soft boundaries where you're
(35:57):
willing and able to stretch, to try and explore, and
you might hit a hard note. And some things are
just like a hard no. Right now, I know that
I'm done that's it's part of the language of consent,
particularly in the BDSM community, which is another group that
has more comprehensive conversations about consent than most folks ever do.
(36:19):
And let me I feel as a public health person,
I feel an obligation to say that part of your
conversation can involve safety levels like risk of infection increases
with different bodily fluids and touching different skin areas. So
think about what fluids you're willing to share. Is sharing
saliva with someone else okay? Is saliva meeting genitals secretions okay?
(36:42):
Is hands on genital secretions okay? Or do you always
want to have gloves on? How about genital to mouth?
How about blood genital genital rubbing? Or what kind of
barriers are acceptable to you? Or dam's an acceptable barrier?
These are just the basic physical safety questions, but they
can crack open other conversations about the emotional safety and
(37:08):
how comfortable do you feel watching your partner with other people?
Which behaviors are you okay watching? Which behaviors might you
be okay doing while others are watching. Some people are
really into exhibitionism, some people are really into voyeurism, and
others are not so much. So one good starting place
(37:28):
question is does Alex feel threatened if their partner is
enthusiastically watching another couple makeout. M Yeah, I love this
thought experiment, and like, intellectually, obviously, I love Mo. I
trust MO. I feel very secure in our connection and relationship.
(37:49):
I do not feel like, you know, if we go
to this orgy, MO is going to run off with
someone else and I'll never see her again, you know, Yeah,
your relationship is not at stake. Yes, exactly, But the
reality is like, i feel like these fantasy and hypotheticals
aren't the same as the real thing. And I'm like,
I'm just notna know how I feel until I'm there,
(38:11):
until you get there in the moment, and so yeah exactly,
And will your body tell you how you feel in
the moment? Yes? How much of a delay is there
between when you feel something and when you're totally aware
that you feel it and can articulate it. Oh, I'm
very sensitive. I can. I get emotional very quickly. Actually,
I'm afraid my biggest fear is that I'll cry at
(38:33):
this orgy. Well if you cry, so what we deal
with crying all the time? Post sex, it's like it happens.
I don't want to be a bone or killer for
everybody else one. There are some people who are super
into crying in like a good way too. Crying after
orgasm is definitely a thing that can happen. So you know,
(38:54):
not all crying is indicative of just sheer discomfort. But
I think the most important thing here is that you
have that strong connection with your body. So if you
just sustain that welcoming of what your body is saying
without worrying about what it should be saying, which it
sounds like, is like the conflict for you is on
the one hand, this is how I feel and on
(39:16):
the other hand, I feel like I'm supposed to be
doing this other thing. Have that ambivalence and keep communicating
about it. You are two people. You are having two
different experiences. Both of them are valid and legitimate and important,
and both of them are going to be ambivalent. Right
and again, like, I'm not one hundred percent certain that
(39:37):
I will be an enthusiastic yess throughout this whole experience.
I'm an enthusiastic yess right now about the idea of it.
Like if we go, we could get there and all
of a sudden, I'm an enthusiastic maybe, or I'm a
maybe maybe or a no, and you're the yess Like,
I think that's also very much a possibility. So, Emily,
do you have any final pieces of advice for us,
(39:59):
Like we're going to be talking about this tonight, maybe tomorrow,
we're going to be making the decision in the next
few days. Do you have any parting pieces of advice
about separating our decisions from each other's desires or anyone
else's desires. That experience of what you want feeling clouded
(40:22):
by what other people want is so, so so important,
and honestly, it's something you only learn to navigate by practicing.
And the context where you can practice safely is when
there are no unwanted consequences. Right, the relationship is not
(40:43):
at stake, No one's going to judge you. Everything will
be fine no matter what happens. You can practice and
make mistakes because there's nothing at risk. There's nothing at stake,
And if you decide to go, which you may just
decide not to go, and that's fine too, But if
you decide to go, make a plan for aftercare, for
processing the residual feelings in the hours or maybe days
(41:07):
or even weeks after word. Because this is a first
time experience for both of you. My general recommendation for
any first time experience is to go really slowly in
your decision making, and it's better to look back on
it and wish you had tried something more than to
(41:29):
regret that you tried too much. Yeah, could I ask
what would you say? Is one important thing? Not like
the only pertant thing or the most important thing, but
just an important What's an important thing that you're taking
away from this conversation for me to realize. I do
not feel insecure about my relationship to Mo or my
(41:50):
connection with MO, and I do not fear that MO
is going to run off with someone else. So I
think that if I can get to a place with
myself where I feel excited about going and feel, you know,
like it could be a really on experience, which I
do right now, I think that's the only thing standing
(42:12):
in my way. That's great. Thank you. Yeah, of course,
And you do not have to go. You are still
under no obligation. Oh, I know, I know I could
change my mind in five minutes before I Yeah, of course, Yep.
I feel like whereas before I felt kind of like
shameful and embarrassed to you know, think about it at all,
(42:36):
And now I'm feeling a lot more confident and like
dare I say, excited about the opportunity to go, and
like I think it could be really fun. All right,
we need to take a break, and Alex, I know
you need to get back to work because you have
been talking to us during your lunch break. So I
(42:57):
just thank you for taking the time and being so
honest and like willing to talk about this on the show.
Of course, thank you so much for having me and Emily.
This has been so helpful. I feel a lot more
competent about this whole conversation and the potential of going,
So thank you. I'm really excited. I have a lot
to think about. That's so great. It's been really delightful
(43:19):
meeting you. Thanks Alex. When we get back, we are
going to highlight some of the major takeaways from our
conversation because there are a lot, so we'll be back
in a minute. All right, Emily, So I need a
(43:46):
TLDR and some practical advice for my consent Olympics. Absolutely,
and it has been not just basics for beginners, but
advanced stuff, so to recap, enthusiastic consent is the gold standard, absolutely,
and also open consent or willing consent is normal. In fact,
(44:09):
my definition of normal sex is when everyone is glad
to be there and free to leave with no unwanted consequences,
plus no one's experiencing unwanted pain. It sounds really simple,
but that doesn't always mean it's easy, especially in the
context of rigid binary rules, which brings me to point
(44:31):
number two. On the day you're born, people look at
your genitals and they assign you a list of rules
and regulations about who you're supposed to be as a
sexual person. If you have the it's a girl package,
you're taught to be pretty happy, called generous, and unfailingly
attentive to the needs of others. And if you get
the it's a boy package, you're supposed to be confident
(44:54):
and constantly horny and totally incurious because you already know
everything there is to know. It is a really toxic combination,
and your access to enthusiastic consent will crack wide open
when you begin eliminating the gender binary from your understanding
of yourself as a sexual person. Three ambivalence is normal
(45:19):
for two reasons. First, we all have a sexual accelerator
that responds to sex related stimuli, and we all also
have breaks that respond to all potential threats. That's the
first reason why ambivalence is normal. But also second, we
live in a world that fills our heads with mutually
contradictory and often shaming messages about sex, and we bring
(45:44):
those with us into a sexual context. So it's like
our breaks are on kind of all the time, and
so we bring ambivalence with us into a sexual context. Fourth,
the solution for this For some people, it might be
to say no to anything about which they feel ambivalent,
and that's great. But another solution is to say yes
(46:07):
to the things that you want and to communicate your
ambivalence to your partner. Work out cooperative strategies so that
you can explore at the edges of what feels yes
while always having a door open for a no. And
one more tip, a little bonus practice staying over your
own emotional center of gravity. The ambivalence may feel like
(46:29):
you're oscillating around a center right, swinging to the no
and swinging to the yes, and that's normal as long
as it doesn't knock you down. If you find yourself
leaning on your partner to guide you instead of relying
on your own internal sense of center, that's a sign
that you're out of balance. Take a break then and
start again when you're feeling more centered. If this episode
(46:57):
has brought up a lot of feelings for you, when
you want to process them with someone, or just read
more about consent, check out the resources in our show notes.
Next week, we are going to be answering maybe my
favorite question that we've ever gotten on the Come as
you Are hotline? Are you supposed to have sticks? When
(47:18):
you get that old quote? I'm saying if you want it,
I do want it. Come As You Are is a
production of Pushkin Industries and Madison Wells. It's hosted by
(47:38):
Emily Nagowski. You can find Emily on Instagram at e
Nagowski and on Twitter at Emily Nagowski. You can also
sign up for her newsletter at gimially Nagowski dot com,
where she writes about everything from the clitteriest in your
mind to orgasm after having hysterected me. It's an incredible newsletter.
Highly recommended. This show is co hosted and Leave produced
(48:01):
by me Mola Board. You can find me online at
Mola board and on TikTok at podcast, dot slut, Sorry mom.
My co producer on this show is the fabulous Brittany Brown.
Our editor is Kate Parkinson Morgan. Sound design and mix
by Anne Pope. Executive producers are Mia LaBelle and LEETL.
(48:22):
Mallod at Pushkin Thanks to Heather Faine, Carl Migliori, Sophie Crane,
Courtney Guarino, Jason Gambrel, Julia Barton, John Schnars, and Jacob
Weisberg at Madison Wells. Thanks to Kylie Williams, Elizabeth Goodstein
and Gg Pritzker. Additional thanks to Rich Stevens, Lindsay Edgecombe,
(48:45):
Frolick Media, and Peter Acker at Armadillo Audio Group. Original
music for this series was composed by Ameliagowski and arranged
and recorded by Alexandra Kalinovsky. Additional music from Epidemic Sound.
You can find Pushkin on all social platforms at Pushkin Pods,
(49:06):
and you can sign up for our newsletter at pushkin
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(49:29):
If you subscribe to Pushkin Plus, you can hear Come
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listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
(49:50):
like to listen
Pushkin. Hey everybody, this is a heads up that this
episode includes discussions of sexual consent or lack thereof, so
keep that in mind when you're listening. Yeah, we're going
to be talking specifically about the maybes that come up
in sex and how to navigate those, which, to be clear,
(00:35):
is different from coercion and manipulation in sex, but we
do talk about those topics too. So if this episode
brings up some feelings for you, we have resources in
our show notes. Okay, now onto the episode. Yi, Hi, Hi,
(00:56):
and I'm calling in. I have a question for you.
There has to be another way to teach consent that
does not you know, just use the word yes as
a stand in for consent. Amo, is this actually just
from you? Is this are you asking me for a friend?
(01:18):
How do you know? I am actually asking this question
for me and my girlfriend. I love that. It's a
dream come true. If I do nothing else with this podcast,
I want to make your personal sex life better. I'm
Emmily Nagaski and this is the Come as you Are
podcast where I answer questions about sex with science. In
(01:43):
this episode, we're talking about consent, and this is an
advanced class in consent where we talk about all the
nuances and power dynamics, and I want to introduce a
concept I call the enthusiastic maybe all the comfortable, joyful,
consensual maybes insects and how to navigate those. And here
(02:07):
with me is the one and only producer mo Hi Emily. Hello.
So this topic listeners might look at it and think, oh,
I understand consent completely. It's yes and no. It's black
and white. At least that is what I learned about
consent on a college campus in twenty fifteen. I was
(02:28):
taught that the only kind of consent is a verbal
enthusiastic yes. Yeah. If it's not an enthusiastic yes, then
it's an enthusiastic no. That seems to be yeah what
young sex educators are teaching now. I recently took my
first foray into TikTok sex education because you told me
there were sex educators on TikTok, and the very first
(02:50):
video I saw was like, enthusiastic consent is the only consent.
I'm sure you are extremely familiar with the enthusiastic yes
model because you were a peer educator on college campuses,
right yep, back in the mid nineties, I was, and
what I learned to teach was yes means yes. No
means no, silence means no, maybe means no, I'm not
(03:12):
sure means no. Only yes means yes. So to help
explain this sort of enthusiastic consent, you say yes when
you want to, When you have no fear of the
consequences of saying yes or the consequences of saying no.
You are fully free, right, Like, it's not only that
both people are at a yes. You are enthusiastic about
(03:35):
the sex. You're super excited about the sex you're having.
There's a simplicity to the enthusiastic yes is the only
kind of consent. And I can see why that is
so important for people who are just starting out of
having sex to learn, like enthusiastic yes, Like that's a
great place to start, but it can't be the end
(03:57):
of the conversation. I really think it's just the beginning
of the conversation about consent. And like you said, enthusiastic yes,
it doesn't encompass the comfortable and consensual maybees that do
come up insects. Yea, And that is what I want
(04:17):
to talk about with you today. It just pop my
Lacroix Open Delicious. We're not sponsored by Lacroix. I'm just
a stereotype. Okay, Emily, are you ready to hear more
about my question? I am, I'm ready. As you know,
we spend a lot of time together answering questions from
people who call into the hotline. So recently we were
(04:40):
talking about this concept of the enthusiastic maybe. I was like,
hot day, that's new information for me, and I really
love it. And then I realized, like, wait, my girlfriend
and I are currently in a situation where we need
help navigating and enthusiastic maybe in our relationship. So how
(05:00):
do you feel about helping us? I consent enthusiastically so cheesy. Okay,
So my girlfriend Alex Air quotes Alex. It's going to
come on the episode a little bit later so you
can hear from both of our perspectives. But for now,
(05:20):
let me just summarize the situation up at the top.
Alex and I were invited to an orgy. Okay, it
is our first time being invited to an orgy, and
it's a queer like ABCD party anybody but assistudes, and
it's organized by one of our friends who's like this
queer power connector and there's a Google form where you
(05:43):
fill out your vaccination status and it has all this
safety information. But here's our question. So we would only
go together. There is not a world where one of
us would go without the other one. Now I am
an enthusiastic Yes, I want to go. I'm feeling like yolo.
It sounds super fun, sounds hot. I love it. But
(06:07):
my girlfriend Alex is less sure. They're definitely curious about going,
but they're nervous. So the orgy is coming up in
a few weeks, and every time we talk about if
we're gonna go, we just like, uh, we don't know
we're gonna do. We get stuck at this place where
Alex is like maybe, but I'm scared, and I'm like,
(06:29):
you don't have to go, and they're like, but I
kind of want to. I'm just scared, and we get
like we just hit an impass and we say like, Okay,
we'll come back to this tomorrow. But it actually seems
like we are not equipped to have the level of
conversation that we need to have. And like we said
in the beginning of this episode, everything I have learned
(06:50):
about consent up until this point is like, if it's
not an enthusiastic yes from everybody involved, then it can't happen. Period.
And you know, Alex is curious and interested but unsure,
like they are ultimately a maybe. So the first part
of our question is like, how do we actually handle
(07:13):
a maybe in real life? And the second part of
our question is that if we go, we're like, oh shit,
this is going to be the consent Olympics. Not that
it's a competition, of course, but I just mean that
we're going to an orgy for the first time together.
So if we go, we'll be navigating like our different
(07:34):
levels of comfort and enthusiasm. And it seems like the
kind of situation where we will need to be constantly
evaluating and communicating the consent that we have with each
other and any new consent that we might be bringing
in if you know there's someone else involved. It's like, Okay,
if we're going to go to the consent Olympics, we
(07:56):
need a session with a trainer. Yeah, this is an
advanced consent situation, not for beginners. And I feel so
thrilled that I get to help you work out this situation.
And I gotta say, like, if you're listening and thinking, oh,
I'm never going to go to an orgy, so this
isn't applicable to me. I really think that this concept
(08:19):
of enthusiastic maybe is applicable in so many other situations. Yeah, Like,
I think it's really common whenever one partner wants to
try something new, Like let's say one partner wants to
try watching point together or having anal sex, having a threesome.
I think these are really common, and I think those
(08:40):
are all times where an enthusiastic maybe might apply. And
that's part of the same conversation that we're having here. Yeah,
so let's do this thing. Where should we start. Let's
begin by making sure everybody's got the very basic basics,
which is by saying that consent is the starting line,
(09:01):
not the finish line. We want to bring our partners pleasure.
We want to share pleasure. We want to have good sex,
great sex, or brain melting sex. Right. We don't want
to listen to a sex podcast to learn to have
bare minimum consensual sex. We don't want our partner to
wake up at the morning and say, hmmm, last night
was so consensual, right, I mean no, we definitely want
(09:25):
that we definitely don't want the alternative, But I mean,
is that your standard for a great night that was consensual? Yeah? No,
If I had hot sex, it was consensual sex. Yeah. Yeah.
So when I was teaching about responsive desire, remember we
had an episode on responsive desire, it's desire that emerges
(09:47):
in response to pleasure rather than in anticipation of pleasure,
it became clear that the conversation about consent needed to
be more nuanced than just enthusiastic. Yes, because the point
of responsive desire is your enthusiasm emerges only once you
have preheated the oven, right, you have to sort of
(10:08):
get start. And you and I have spent a lot
of time in this series talking about the dual control
model that breaks and the accelerator. Yeah, And for me,
one of the key things about the dual control model
is it tells us why and how ambivalence is normal.
We are often in context that are full of stuff
(10:29):
that activates the accelerator and also stuff that hits the breaks.
So you imagine you're just at the generic party and
you're making out and turned on and lots of accelerator
is happening, but also you're here in public, and that
doesn't seem okay, and let's go somewhere else, right accelerator
and breaks at the same time, or you're in bed
together and it's super hot, but not unless you've got
(10:52):
a condom, my friend. Just living in the intensely sex
negative world that many of us live in, a lot
of us have culturally imposed shame hitting our breaks kind
of all the time, so our enthusiasm is always held
back by that feeling that we're not even supposed to
(11:13):
be enthusiastic for sex, except that if we're enthusiastic, that's
the only time that we're allowed to have the sex.
And if you can't get to enthusiasm, then you shouldn't
even me saying yes. Yeah, an enthusiastic yes is like
a high bar. Yeah. We call it the gold standard.
Another thing I've been thinking about is a lot of
times the level of conversation about consent gets brought down,
(11:36):
you know, to be a conversation directed at that person
who needs to hear like don't assault someone. And obviously
I understand why the conversation is catered to that person
because they really need to hear that message. But at
the same time, if the only conversations we have are
(11:59):
the ones that are catered to that person that needs
to hear, you know, how to not be violent. Then
we're losing so much nuance about power, communication, gender, all
the things that play into consent. Yeah. One thing that's
really interesting to me is like how the cultural definition
(12:21):
of consent has changed over time. This is my women's
Studies degree coming out. But you know, for my grandmother
it was in nineteen fifty it was like, there is
no such thing as consent within a marriage. If you
got married, you're consenting, yea. And for my mom in
the seventies, there was like some no means no jargon.
(12:42):
And then for me when I got to college, there
was like enthusiastic verbal yes yes means yes. So I
was wondering if you could like give me a little
cultural history of the definitions of consent. Yeah, that basically
tracks in my original training in the mid nineties, I
was taught yes means yes, everything else means no, and
(13:04):
that was still pretty progressive at the time. Let me
add that marital rape was only finally outlawed everywhere in
the United States when I was in high school in
the early nineties. Oh, we have come a long way
fast your grandmother might even be legally correct that there
(13:25):
was no such thing as non consensual married sex. Yeah,
about your right, I mean in Louisiana in nineteen fifty four.
On the one hand, we've come a long way fast,
and on the other hand, a lot of this stuff
just clings like it will not let go. So about
ten years ago, it was actually exactly ten years ago,
I started talking about willing consent in addition to enthusiastic consent,
(13:51):
to make space for responsive desire. I learned this language
of willing consent from a sex therapist, Susanna i Assenza,
who's in New York City, but a student of mine.
Felt like the word willing leaves too much room for
interpretation of like willingness could be like, oh, yes, okay,
I guess like that's willingness, like if you must, or
(14:12):
you're like you have a sense of obligation, rather than sure,
let's see what happens, which is what I mean when
I say willing. So we sort of decided that open
or openness has a warmer connotation of readiness, appreciation, poorousness connection.
I've been trying to make it even simpler over the
last ten years. So I booled it down to this,
(14:35):
that the key is for everyone to be glad to
be there and free to leave with no unwanted consequences.
Plus there's no one wanted pain. And when I say
no one wanted consequences, of course, I mean no one
wanted physical consequences obviously, but also no social consequences, no
(14:57):
emotional consequences. The relationship is not at all at stake.
No one has anything to lose, No one will judge
you for stopping. Everyone will be completely fine with whatever happens,
because what matters most to everyone involved is that everyone
has a good time. Oh my god, Okay, glad to
be there, free to leave without fear of any unwanted consequences.
(15:23):
I love that definition. I mean, obviously there can be
physical consequences and violence for saying no, but I also
think we don't talk enough about emotional punishment for saying no.
Like let's say your partner gets mad at you or
gives you this silent treatment or shuts down, Like those
(15:46):
are all unwanted consequences that I think sometimes people fear
when they're they're doing that mental calculus if like do
I want to do this or am I just like
acquiescing because I don't want to have to deal with
the unwanted consequences of saying no. And I know that
this is a very binary way to look at it,
(16:07):
but like, just having had sex with s for a
few years of my life, I'm like, the amount of
temper tantrums I had to deal with because they didn't
get the sex they wanted is unbelievable. Like so many
men are really out there acting like that all the time.
And that I think, you know, free to leave without
(16:29):
fear of unwanted consequence is like a very overdue addition
to the definition of consent exactly. Yeah, And there's actually
a lot of advancement happening in this conversation from a
relatively surprising source. The asexual community has really been at
the forefront of broadening this definition of consent. A few
(16:51):
months ago, I got to talk to the journalist and
editor Angela Chen. She's asexual, and she wrote a book
called Ace What Asexuality Reveals about Desire, society, and the
meaning of sex. She said this thing about consent that
I really love. She said, the idea that enthusiastic consent
is the only real consent. It essentially cast doubt on
(17:12):
the ability of aces of asexual people to give consent. Uh.
Because so, for a really quick primer, asexuality is a
sexual orientation where you were not sexually attracted to anyone,
but there are sex favorable asexual folks who may say
(17:33):
a willing or open yes. Uh huh. I'm also thinking
about sex work and sex workers who are consenting, but
they might not be enthusiastic. Yeah. A lot of us
show for work not enthusiastic. Yeah. I'm really glad you
brought up the ace community, the asexual community, and Angela
(17:54):
Tan in particular, because I think it underscores this important
point that, like enthusiastic consent is too blunt of an
instrument to try to put onto everyone's personal definitions of
what consent feels like to them. Another thing I've been
thinking about is this antiquated hetero cultural script that is
(18:16):
still out there that says, like, to be a quote
unquote good sexual partner, then you need to be willing
to try the things your partner wants to try. I
struggle with that because obviously sometimes people might fit into
that model when they're feeling like enthusiastic maybe yeah, But
(18:37):
I think other times that model leaves so much room
for like pressure and coercion and emotional manipulation like oh,
if you're going to be a good partner to me,
I need you to do X, y Z. Thing that
is not the equivalent of the enthusiastic Maybe. That's like
a sort of cultural script that could overlap with the
(18:57):
enthusiastic maybe, but also could overlap with a much darker
and non consensual situation. Yes, that is exactly where the
sort of dinesses. And I just again love the definition
you have about free to leave without fear of unwanted
consequences because it acknowledges like the power dynamics and the
(19:22):
motivations behind the words yes and no. Yes, that's exactly
the goal, because it's true that in the real world,
not everyone is equally free to say yes or no. Right.
In Burnout, the book that I write with my sister,
we describe the social expectations for anyone assigned the It's
(19:43):
a Girl package of rules and regulations. We say that
we are assigned the role of being human givers, and
we are expected to be at all times without fail. Ready,
here's the list. Yes, hit it with the list eily
morally obligated to be pretty happy yet calm, generous, and
attentive to the needs of other thing. So if someone
(20:08):
is aessing their internal experience, they may notice it. On
the one hand, they're not really interested in like what
their partners doing and like it could be better, and
also they feel a moral obligation to make their partner
happy and make sure their needs are met. So even
a situation that everyone is glad to be there, but
maybe your partners touch you in a way that's very
(20:29):
well intentioned, but it's just not doing it for you,
and your partner goes, do you like that? What do
we say as human givers? Yeah, we're like, yeah, yeah,
rather than saying actually a little pressure and a little
little little more speed would be bad. We don't want
(20:53):
to hurt our partners feelings or make them feel criticized totally.
And then on the other side, there's the of the binary,
there's the people assigning. It's a boy package of rules
and regulations. I've started to call them the human winners
because they're allowed to feel horny, winning and angry and
that's it. But above all, they're supposed to know everything
(21:15):
about sex already without ever asking questions or making mistakes
from receiving any feedback, so they're trained to be sensitive
to hearing their partners say a little more pressure and
a little more speed, and you're basically criticizing their entire identity.
(21:35):
And this goes back to the timber tantrum thing, like
this gender rules thing. It helps explain why some sis
men do this, but it does not excuse it. And
people of all genders can react that way when they
don't get what they want in sex. It's a it's
a twisted mess. And then everyone else, the trans folks,
(21:56):
non binary folks, a gender folks, are fed these same
binary rules yeah, and have to negotiate with their own
internal beliefs about what these mean for them and get
clear with their partners about what it means. This is
a miss. Nobody's free and basically, can we all get
our collective act together and quit it with the gender nonsense? Right?
(22:20):
I mean, a real complex conversation about consent has to
include this conversation about gender roles, about motivations, internal scripts,
and even within all of those layers, there's that surprising
analogy you explain to me about consent being like tea.
It's imperfect, but I like it. So can you explain
(22:40):
the tea analogy a little bit? Yeah, So this was
a really viral thing. In twenty fifteen, there was this
blog from Rockstar Dinosaur Pirate Princess comparing sexual consent to tea,
and they were like, we can all understand that if
you offer a person a cup of tea and they
say no, you do not require them to drink tea.
(23:00):
And if they say yes, and you spend the time
boiling the water and brewing the tea and you bring
it to them and they change their mind, you still
don't insist that they the tea. Even though you went
to all that trouble you made it they decided not
to drink it all well, And because the person has
come over to your house and had tea with you
several times before, that does not mean there any obligation
to come and have tea with you again. And for sure,
(23:23):
if they like pass out between the time they said
yes to tea and the time you bring them the tea,
you don't pour tea down their throat. We can all
get that, right, yep. One thing I do like about
the tea analogy is that it helps frame consent as
an ongoing conversation. I love that, and it also is
a very easy way to understand that consent to tea
(23:47):
isn't consent to biscuits. And honestly, in twenty fifteen, that
was a really important language for a lot of people.
It went superviral for a reason because it was so straightforward,
but it did leave out some really important subtleties, Like
I was thinking, Okay, so suppose person A offers tea.
(24:09):
It's a person be Yeah, what are all the things
that might be going through person Bee's head. Are they
thinking I want this person's company or approval or friendship.
I want to not be rude. I don't want to
hurt their feelings. I want to follow the rules of
this culture. Maybe I want to tell my friends that
I had tea with this person. You know, I would
(24:30):
like the sugar in the milk, but I don't want
any actual tea. So what I want is a world
where person B feels comfortable and confidence saying no, thank
you please to the tea. But I would enjoy seeing
what your tea cups look like and enjoying my own
cup of sugar and milk. Also, I would really love
(24:53):
to watch you drink tea. Yeah, okay, we need to
take a break. I need to run to the little
podcaster's room. And then when we get back, my girlfriend
Alex is going to come on the show and we
are going to get your advice, Emily on navigating this
(25:14):
enthusiastic maybe within our relationship, and we're going to get
some training lessons for the consent Olympics. All right, all right,
(25:34):
we are back and Emily is going to help me
and my girlfriend Alex navigate this question about should we
go to this orgy? Hi, Alex, not your real name, girlfriend. Hello,
thanks for coming and for calling in from the car
instead of taking your lunch break. You're the best. So
(25:56):
you want to introduce yourself? Yeah, hi everybody. I'm glad
to be here, glad to have your health. Emily answering
this question, my name is Alex. I'm non binary. I
use the then pronounced. But one of the great thing
about being queer and non binaries that you get to
choose the language that works for you, which is why
you know, Mo has been using the words like girlfriend
(26:17):
and like lesbian for our relationship. Those words are comfy
for us, so we use gendered language when it feels comfortable. Yeah, yeah,
that's me. I'm so excited. Thank you for helping us, Emily,
I'm so excited too. All right, let's do it. Let's
get right into it then, So Alex, can you start
by explaining how you're feeling about potentially attending this orgy
(26:39):
with me and any context, any set up you feel
you need to do. Okay, So, Mo and I have
been in a relationship for almost three years, and that's
been a monogamous relationship. We have not opened that relationship
and we've never had anyone else involved sexually in our relationship.
And then we have some really fun friends in our
(27:00):
lesbian friend group that have invited us to an orgy
later this month, and it seems like a really fun opportunity. Intellectually, wait,
really quick, what do you mean by you like the idea? Intellectually?
What does that mean? I like the idea of going
because how many times in my life am I going
to be invited to something like this? But when I
(27:23):
really think about it, I get really nervous because there's
so many unknown factors and I just don't know how
I'm going to feel when we're there, and I'm kind
of scared that unexpected feelings will come up, but most
seems a little bit more confident. I mean, yes, I
am an enthusiastic Yes, I'm excited to potentially go. But again, like,
(27:46):
this is a decision that we have to make together.
The only situation where we will go is one where
we are going together, and I want to make sure
that when you say maybe, like we really explore what
that actually means. So, first of all, do you have
a sense that Alex, it's okay for you to say
(28:08):
no to something when you feel ambivalent. That's a tricky question. Um.
I sometimes feel like I'm not sure if I'm saying
yes because it's you know, with within the context of
sex or not if I was or request made of me.
Sometimes I don't know if I'm saying yes because it's
truly something I want to do, or if it's something
(28:29):
I just feel obligated to do. You know. Being raised
in the South, um, with the what is the language
that you use, the female no, the I'm a girl package,
it's a girl packet. You were raised to be a lady.
It sounds like exactly, to be very polite and to
always accept the tea when it's offered. To you, um, etc. Yeah.
(28:52):
So I have a hard time, you know, deciphering what
I really want and what is expected of me. H,
that's so important and no one ever talks about it.
I'm so excited we're going there. Yeah. This is one
of the big reasons we wanted to talk to you, Emily,
is because we both identify as people pleasers. So when
(29:12):
Alex and I have been talking together about if we
want to go to this orgy, Alex, one thing I
have heard you say again and again is like that
you're worried it'll be rude if you go and you
say no to everyone except for me. Yeah, I mean, okay,
I've never done anything like this before. So one of
(29:34):
my questions, I guess, is like, is my attendance at
this party, this orgy implying consent to have sex with
anyone else who is there. I know, intellectually no, like
I should. I will be able to say no. I
have autonomy if somebody approaches me and I'm not interestood,
(29:54):
I can say like no, thank you. But like, there's
something in me that I just don't know what the
social rules of this space are. So that's one thing
that is scaring me is there a space where I
could just like Mo and I I could do our
own thing in one area of the room and then
kind of just like be witnessed and witness what else
(30:17):
is going on? Is that considered rude? Or are we
are we supposed to participate? Is everyone's supposed to have
equal participation? I guess I'm nervous about, like, because it
is a friend's house, a friend's party, and I'm used
to being a good house guest. You know what the
expectations are there. So really what you would like is
(30:38):
an Emily Post manual of etiquette that I'm pretty sure
Emily Posts does not have a chapter on orgy etiquette,
but the Emily Nagowski Guide is probably as close as
we're ever gonna get. Yeah, I loved etiquete manuals when
I was a kid. I'm super into that. And at
(30:59):
the same time, like, you would never go to a
party and have your attendance imply consent for any other
kind of behavior, Like if you come to this you
are definitely going to have at least four drinks, or
if you come to this party, you must eat the
shrim right. If you are really worried, ask the host
about the ground rules. We can do that. If there
(31:22):
are no ground rules, I'm going to say, don't go,
but I bet there are. And then also, when you
know what the ground rules are, talk about it between you,
make plans for the things that you expect might be
most comfortable or least comfortable. I would also say for
the two of you to have a plan for how
to stay attuned to Alex's level of ambivalence, so while
(31:47):
you're there, their level of ambivalence is going to move
around their level of comfort. And make a plan if
you can feel sort of an escalation of the jealousy
or the freak out or any of the other things,
like if surprising feelings come up, which probably it will
be surprising. And the great thing about a strong relationship,
(32:11):
mo is you're one hundred percent committed to prioritizing your
partners know above anything, right, Absolutely, Yes, of course, it
doesn't matter how into something you are. If your partner
comes over and says this is a no for me,
then it's a no for us, right you stop? Yeah, absolutely,
And I think you can do some test runs or
at least brainstormy. You can talk through the kinds of
(32:35):
things you might experience so MO as the less ambivalent
partner can say, Okay, so let's imagine someone invites me
to do something and have you watched What are some
things that I might do and how might you feel
about it? Or you could swap it around. Suppose someone
invites you, Alex to do something with me watching, or
suppose there's someone I'd like to connect with with you
(32:58):
talk through all those limits in an advance and think
through what those situations might feel and be like, yeah,
just sort of mix and match scenarios and then talk
through how we might react to them together in the moment. Yeah. Yeah.
For some reason, it feels like okay, touching body touching
(33:21):
feels okay, but like kissing someone else or like seeing
mo because someone else feels really intimate, Like yeah, I mean,
I'm just I'm pro titty touching, pro grinding, all of that.
Like it feels like, okay, you know, you're just dancing
in a club, like there's just a lot of people around.
Everybody's kind of bumping into each other. That feels fine,
(33:42):
and there feels like a sense of anonymity around that
even if I know those people but I don't know.
Kissing just feels so intimate to me and uniquely romantic. Okay,
see this is very good because we have never gotten
this specific before in the conversation, Like I'm totally down
to titty touch and grind, but not kiss other people.
(34:05):
It sounds amazing, sounds hot. Yeah, but then how do
we explain that to someone? So like if we were
to work through a scenario now, like, okay, we're have it,
we're doing our own thing, We're into each other at
this party, and someone comes up to us and says, oh,
can can I join you? Guys? How do we say, like, well, yes,
you can touch me in this way, in this way,
(34:26):
in this way, but not don't kiss me and don't
kiss her, but where you can watch us kiss. You know.
It's like feels like a lot of a lot of nose,
a lot of information. Yeah, that's why you know these
are advanced skills, right, because the question I'm asked all
the time is how do I ask my partner for
And this is the same, like how do I communicate
to somebody else at this party what our limits are?
(34:49):
And of course the answer is you just say, yeah,
our limits is we're only kissing each other on the mouth,
and nobody else we're into titty touching and to grinding.
If that sounds good for you, what are your rules? Right?
So the real question is not how do we do it?
Because how you do it is you just say it.
The question is what is it that's stopping you? What
(35:10):
is stopping you from saying? Right now, we are not
having tea, We are just having milk and sugar, and
we are collecting teacups. M What would have to happen
for you to feel comfortable speaking a boundary like that
out loud? That's a great question. Yeah, what would need
to happen? I think it would be helpful for us
to work through hypothetical scenarios and also just to have
(35:32):
a like an escape route. Heck, yes, you know, if
one of us is ready to go, we go. There's
no like negotiating like no, please, I really want to
you know, I don't know. Is that is that wrong?
To say no? No? That's great. It's called a hard no.
Hard limits. There are soft limits, soft boundaries where you're
(35:57):
willing and able to stretch, to try and explore, and
you might hit a hard note. And some things are
just like a hard no. Right now, I know that
I'm done that's it's part of the language of consent,
particularly in the BDSM community, which is another group that
has more comprehensive conversations about consent than most folks ever do.
(36:19):
And let me I feel as a public health person,
I feel an obligation to say that part of your
conversation can involve safety levels like risk of infection increases
with different bodily fluids and touching different skin areas. So
think about what fluids you're willing to share. Is sharing
saliva with someone else okay? Is saliva meeting genitals secretions okay?
(36:42):
Is hands on genital secretions okay? Or do you always
want to have gloves on? How about genital to mouth?
How about blood genital genital rubbing? Or what kind of
barriers are acceptable to you? Or dam's an acceptable barrier?
These are just the basic physical safety questions, but they
can crack open other conversations about the emotional safety and
(37:08):
how comfortable do you feel watching your partner with other people?
Which behaviors are you okay watching? Which behaviors might you
be okay doing while others are watching. Some people are
really into exhibitionism, some people are really into voyeurism, and
others are not so much. So one good starting place
(37:28):
question is does Alex feel threatened if their partner is
enthusiastically watching another couple makeout. M Yeah, I love this
thought experiment, and like, intellectually, obviously, I love Mo. I
trust MO. I feel very secure in our connection and relationship.
(37:49):
I do not feel like, you know, if we go
to this orgy, MO is going to run off with
someone else and I'll never see her again, you know, Yeah,
your relationship is not at stake. Yes, exactly, But the
reality is like, i feel like these fantasy and hypotheticals
aren't the same as the real thing. And I'm like,
I'm just notna know how I feel until I'm there,
(38:11):
until you get there in the moment, and so yeah exactly,
And will your body tell you how you feel in
the moment? Yes? How much of a delay is there
between when you feel something and when you're totally aware
that you feel it and can articulate it. Oh, I'm
very sensitive. I can. I get emotional very quickly. Actually,
I'm afraid my biggest fear is that I'll cry at
(38:33):
this orgy. Well if you cry, so what we deal
with crying all the time? Post sex, it's like it happens.
I don't want to be a bone or killer for
everybody else one. There are some people who are super
into crying in like a good way too. Crying after
orgasm is definitely a thing that can happen. So you know,
(38:54):
not all crying is indicative of just sheer discomfort. But
I think the most important thing here is that you
have that strong connection with your body. So if you
just sustain that welcoming of what your body is saying
without worrying about what it should be saying, which it
sounds like, is like the conflict for you is on
the one hand, this is how I feel and on
(39:16):
the other hand, I feel like I'm supposed to be
doing this other thing. Have that ambivalence and keep communicating
about it. You are two people. You are having two
different experiences. Both of them are valid and legitimate and important,
and both of them are going to be ambivalent. Right
and again, like, I'm not one hundred percent certain that
(39:37):
I will be an enthusiastic yess throughout this whole experience.
I'm an enthusiastic yess right now about the idea of it.
Like if we go, we could get there and all
of a sudden, I'm an enthusiastic maybe, or I'm a
maybe maybe or a no, and you're the yess Like,
I think that's also very much a possibility. So, Emily,
do you have any final pieces of advice for us,
(39:59):
Like we're going to be talking about this tonight, maybe tomorrow,
we're going to be making the decision in the next
few days. Do you have any parting pieces of advice
about separating our decisions from each other's desires or anyone
else's desires. That experience of what you want feeling clouded
(40:22):
by what other people want is so, so so important,
and honestly, it's something you only learn to navigate by practicing.
And the context where you can practice safely is when
there are no unwanted consequences. Right, the relationship is not
(40:43):
at stake, No one's going to judge you. Everything will
be fine no matter what happens. You can practice and
make mistakes because there's nothing at risk. There's nothing at stake,
And if you decide to go, which you may just
decide not to go, and that's fine too, But if
you decide to go, make a plan for aftercare, for
processing the residual feelings in the hours or maybe days
(41:07):
or even weeks after word. Because this is a first
time experience for both of you. My general recommendation for
any first time experience is to go really slowly in
your decision making, and it's better to look back on
it and wish you had tried something more than to
(41:29):
regret that you tried too much. Yeah, could I ask
what would you say? Is one important thing? Not like
the only pertant thing or the most important thing, but
just an important What's an important thing that you're taking
away from this conversation for me to realize. I do
not feel insecure about my relationship to Mo or my
(41:50):
connection with MO, and I do not fear that MO
is going to run off with someone else. So I
think that if I can get to a place with
myself where I feel excited about going and feel, you know,
like it could be a really on experience, which I
do right now, I think that's the only thing standing
(42:12):
in my way. That's great. Thank you. Yeah, of course,
And you do not have to go. You are still
under no obligation. Oh, I know, I know I could
change my mind in five minutes before I Yeah, of course, Yep.
I feel like whereas before I felt kind of like
shameful and embarrassed to you know, think about it at all,
(42:36):
And now I'm feeling a lot more confident and like
dare I say, excited about the opportunity to go, and
like I think it could be really fun. All right,
we need to take a break, and Alex, I know
you need to get back to work because you have
been talking to us during your lunch break. So I
(42:57):
just thank you for taking the time and being so
honest and like willing to talk about this on the show.
Of course, thank you so much for having me and Emily.
This has been so helpful. I feel a lot more
competent about this whole conversation and the potential of going,
So thank you. I'm really excited. I have a lot
to think about. That's so great. It's been really delightful
(43:19):
meeting you. Thanks Alex. When we get back, we are
going to highlight some of the major takeaways from our
conversation because there are a lot, so we'll be back
in a minute. All right, Emily, So I need a
(43:46):
TLDR and some practical advice for my consent Olympics. Absolutely,
and it has been not just basics for beginners, but
advanced stuff, so to recap, enthusiastic consent is the gold standard, absolutely,
and also open consent or willing consent is normal. In fact,
(44:09):
my definition of normal sex is when everyone is glad
to be there and free to leave with no unwanted consequences,
plus no one's experiencing unwanted pain. It sounds really simple,
but that doesn't always mean it's easy, especially in the
context of rigid binary rules, which brings me to point
(44:31):
number two. On the day you're born, people look at
your genitals and they assign you a list of rules
and regulations about who you're supposed to be as a
sexual person. If you have the it's a girl package,
you're taught to be pretty happy, called generous, and unfailingly
attentive to the needs of others. And if you get
the it's a boy package, you're supposed to be confident
(44:54):
and constantly horny and totally incurious because you already know
everything there is to know. It is a really toxic combination,
and your access to enthusiastic consent will crack wide open
when you begin eliminating the gender binary from your understanding
of yourself as a sexual person. Three ambivalence is normal
(45:19):
for two reasons. First, we all have a sexual accelerator
that responds to sex related stimuli, and we all also
have breaks that respond to all potential threats. That's the
first reason why ambivalence is normal. But also second, we
live in a world that fills our heads with mutually
contradictory and often shaming messages about sex, and we bring
(45:44):
those with us into a sexual context. So it's like
our breaks are on kind of all the time, and
so we bring ambivalence with us into a sexual context. Fourth,
the solution for this For some people, it might be
to say no to anything about which they feel ambivalent,
and that's great. But another solution is to say yes
(46:07):
to the things that you want and to communicate your
ambivalence to your partner. Work out cooperative strategies so that
you can explore at the edges of what feels yes
while always having a door open for a no. And
one more tip, a little bonus practice staying over your
own emotional center of gravity. The ambivalence may feel like
(46:29):
you're oscillating around a center right, swinging to the no
and swinging to the yes, and that's normal as long
as it doesn't knock you down. If you find yourself
leaning on your partner to guide you instead of relying
on your own internal sense of center, that's a sign
that you're out of balance. Take a break then and
start again when you're feeling more centered. If this episode
(46:57):
has brought up a lot of feelings for you, when
you want to process them with someone, or just read
more about consent, check out the resources in our show notes.
Next week, we are going to be answering maybe my
favorite question that we've ever gotten on the Come as
you Are hotline? Are you supposed to have sticks? When
(47:18):
you get that old quote? I'm saying if you want it,
I do want it. Come As You Are is a
production of Pushkin Industries and Madison Wells. It's hosted by
(47:38):
Emily Nagowski. You can find Emily on Instagram at e
Nagowski and on Twitter at Emily Nagowski. You can also
sign up for her newsletter at gimially Nagowski dot com,
where she writes about everything from the clitteriest in your
mind to orgasm after having hysterected me. It's an incredible newsletter.
Highly recommended. This show is co hosted and Leave produced
(48:01):
by me Mola Board. You can find me online at
Mola board and on TikTok at podcast, dot slut, Sorry mom.
My co producer on this show is the fabulous Brittany Brown.
Our editor is Kate Parkinson Morgan. Sound design and mix
by Anne Pope. Executive producers are Mia LaBelle and LEETL.
(48:22):
Mallod at Pushkin Thanks to Heather Faine, Carl Migliori, Sophie Crane,
Courtney Guarino, Jason Gambrel, Julia Barton, John Schnars, and Jacob
Weisberg at Madison Wells. Thanks to Kylie Williams, Elizabeth Goodstein
and Gg Pritzker. Additional thanks to Rich Stevens, Lindsay Edgecombe,
(48:45):
Frolick Media, and Peter Acker at Armadillo Audio Group. Original
music for this series was composed by Ameliagowski and arranged
and recorded by Alexandra Kalinovsky. Additional music from Epidemic Sound.
You can find Pushkin on all social platforms at Pushkin Pods,
(49:06):
and you can sign up for our newsletter at pushkin
dot f M. If you love this show and others
from Pushkin Industries, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus
is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content and uninterrupted
listening for only four ninety nine a month. Look for
Pushkin Plus on Apple podcast subscriptions or at pushkin dot fm.
(49:29):
If you subscribe to Pushkin Plus, you can hear Come
as you Are and other Pushkin shows add free, very nice,
and you'll get episodes a week early. Sign up on
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(49:50):
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2. Stuff You Missed in History Class
Join Holly and Tracy as they bring you the greatest and strangest Stuff You Missed In History Class in this podcast by iHeartRadio.
3. Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.