Intimate Interactions

Consent is so relative to the culture in which you’re interacting. I almost perceive it as the most important kind of etiquette a culture practices; however how a culture practices consent can look wildly different one to the next.

In my opinion, there’s no long linear string of evolution of concepts from touching and grunting through to highly intellectual discussion and negotiation. Instead there are clouds or pillars of vetting consent. Just because some of that vetting or certainty or support for consent is missing doesn’t mean you don’t have consent; however, Western society has such litigious and indemnity focused ideas that when non consent has happened, we are often asked what we did to prevent the outcome or mitigate damage if it arose.

So we have yes means yes consent and also no means no consent, two separate philosophies that can exist independent of each other or superimposed.

More interestingly, those philosophies really struggle to spread when people have direct proof they aren’t always right.

If at a frat party, two people have sex with each other and walk away after sobering up with a handshake or possibly an “oh - you’re still here?” kind of question, many might look down on those consent practices feeling consent while drunk isn’t consent or sex without negotiation isn’t informed, et cetera, et cetera.

Now I can’t know the inner experience of those two people. It’s not for me to try to convince someone else they’ve been assaulted. Trying to change someone’s inner experience verges on gaslighting territory in my opinion. So ultimately I have to take it on faith that when someone describes their inner state, they’re either being truthful or they don’t want to engage in discussion about it. So if they want to talk, I have to trust they’re giving me reasonably honest accounts of their feelings.

So if someone says they consented, it’s not for me to correct them.

We can say certain practices more often produce subjective experiences of nonconsent. Absolutely we can. However if we want to communicate better consent practices to help people avoid unintentionally giving others subjective experiences of nonconsent - even if they can indemnify themselves against punitive or legal consequences somehow, we need to stop talking in absolutes.

In my opinion, we need to start more honestly giving people the nuance they need to navigate this stuff. Sure, we need to communicate to our audiences on the level they’re at - sure. However we want to believe university students learning physics, math, computer science, literature - that these fine minds of tomorrow can’t understand subjective experiences and better consent practices?

The biggest objection I run into with educating university students is an attention span argument: you have got to distill what you’re saying so a drunken frat boy will remember it at a party a week from tonight. Credit to Reid Mihalko for that excellent litmus test.

I think a nuanced framework is necessary. I suggest something like my VOICES Consent Framework which you can find at intimate victor dot com forward slash consent. I love teaching it. I also encourage you to teach it. Reach out to me for permission. If you aren’t charging for the education, I’m not charging you to teach it.

Get in touch if you want to collaborate on teaching better consent.

And now, let’s hear Court Vox share his advice on getting consent on hook-up apps here on Intimate Interactions.

After a fall damaged her shoulder and she needed surgery to fix it, Billie has waited eighteen months so far due to various complications. Today we talk about chronic stress, strategies, and symptoms. We also talk about medical testing and explain what POTS is.

Edging describes the process of getting close to your orgasm and then allowing your body to move further away from orgasm for the purpose of climbing back up to orgasm, closer each time. Doing this can increase the intensity of the eventual orgasm.

We chat about edging, sensuality, erectile dysfunction, edging exercises, antidepressants, masturbating a penis with a very tight grip, and of course training your orgasm.

My friend, sex educator and host of the radio show Sex With Robin on BFM 109.6 every monday at 10AM PST shares with us today about all of those topics. You can learn more about Robin at sexwithrobin.com.

From extreme sex to vanilla sex, what does experimentation look like for you? Vanilla sex here means sex that isn’t kinky in any way, usually referring to penis-in-vagina missionary position. We talk about first BDSM scenes, extreme experiences, and then settling back into what feels more like home for us, the experiences that we continue to feel fed by. Enjoy!

This session we talk about needs for emotionally well, embodied, and connected masculinity and role-models for boys and men. We offer resources and chat about our agreements.

On gender, I resonate strongly with both masculine and feminine feels in ways that are often perceived by cis men as different or other or in some way either gay or just not cis or perhaps both. I think of it as nonbinary or queer gender. I’ve gotten to the point where when folks talk about an ideal masculine or sacred feminine or any other parsing of these categories that are perhaps not strictly arbitrary but are very much mostly arbitrary in my opinion - I tend to kind of smile and nod because choosing only one archetype of gender has never appealed to me. Court does a good job of qualifying language around this one.

I used to police language a lot and get offended when people misgendered me and I think once my family and found family started getting it right most of the time, I’ve started caring a lot less. That’s not available to everyone and there are still members of my inner circle who get it wrong from time to time. Still, it feels right for me to ease off that need for perfection and clarity.

I’ve been trying more when folks use terms in a way that I perceive as harmful, especially self-identity ones, to simply assume a person is doing their best. When folks use racialized terms, it’s especially hard as race isn’t always apparent. Rather than ask about race and get clarity, I am trying to assume the best. If someone uses an indigenous term, I assume they must be part indigenous. I’m trying to practice not having a need to quote unquote “correct” someone.

Further, if someone has made a mistake, I don’t like the idea of cancelling people over mistakes, especially when they’re willing to do work. I also don’t like the idea of hiding mistakes that I or that others make.

For example, some would argue I have a duty or responsibility to my listeners to make those corrections because failing to do so is complicity in that harm. I think there’s some truth to that. It’s one of the reasons I have these intros. I also think modelling how I struggle with ethical issues is a very vulnerable thing rarely offered and likely to get you cancelled by at least some.

However as a lighter skinned BIPOC person, I know how frustrating it can be to have folks ask me what I am or what my race is. With so many factors and identities, it’s easy to get the balance wrong for just about anyone alive right now. So here is my inner monologue exposed for you, the meticulous thought I put into trying to keep everyone as safe as I can and preserve narratives that are often bulldozed over, at least as much as my energy levels allow me to do.

Then there’s the alternative case - on the one hand, I’m either talking to a white person trying to police their language which is often ill received, or perhaps I’m talking to a white passing indigenous person who’s probably faced a lot of erasure. So sometimes there’s no easy or good outcome.

If you would like to learn more about what I mean, the term two-spirit is often considered a sacred term made for Indigenous Peoples by Indigenous Peoples. you can read more at:

https://www.conspireforchange.org/a-letter-to-white-people-using-the-term-two-spirit/

It’s a compassionate way to examine other cultural representations of similar concepts in European cultures that might be more accessible to folks somewhere in the nonbinary experience of gender. It’s not like third genders are unique to Indigenous cultures and we don’t need to take their terms, words, or practices when using our own can help reduce the amount of dilution, erasure, and destruction of culture and cultural cohesion so common to settler-indigenous interactions. 

cw: mob violence, violence against women, witnessing disturbing images as a child

Today we were going to talk about fires but ran into a trauma landmine so I figured we'd run the episode anyways and instead try to talk more about landmines. Unfortunately this episode does contain violence against an 18 year old woman and ongoing trauma from seeing disturbing images at 13. Props to Billie's friend who was dating two army guys at the same time - don't worry, they're not the culprits of the story - and please do take care of yourselves.

What does a village look like when you’re raising a child? Does it need to be only two parents? What about uncles or aunts? What about the parents across the street?

Today we chat with sex educator and host of the radio show Sex With Robin on BFM 109.6 every Monday at 10AM PST. You can learn more about my friend Robin at sexwithrobin.com

Lauren shares with us openly today about working through trauma to find her sexual self. We talk about relationship to self, trauma, panic attacks, sexual abuse, and the light at the end of the tunnel. Content warning for all the things I just described. Still, if you’re resourced for it, please join Lauren and myself as we tackle these hard subjects with care and kindness.

Permission to exist sexually is something I’ve craved since I was a teenager. Whether you’re queer or not, sometimes it’s really hard to learn how to exist with kindness and compassion for yourself, and without that it can be hard to give it to others. Today we’re talking with Court Vox about how we as a society give or deny permission for sexual exploration. Interestingly, this often hinges around trauma because of our cultural narratives around sexual pleasure.

If you want to follow Court Vox on Instagram, he’s @courtvox, or you can reach out on thebodyvox.com. Similarly I’m @intimatevictor and you can reach out to victor at victor salmon dot com.

Now, Court explores how we permit sexual pleasure to those recovering from trauma but deny it if it’s just pleasure for pleasure’s sake. As always, enjoy.

cw: graphic depictions of needles at the end

A former psych nurse and dominatrix talks about the pleasure, pain, risk, and intimacy of needle play. Don’t you love it when moms open up?

The mom in question today is sex educator and host of the radio show Sex With Robin on BFM 109.6 every monday at 10AM PST. You can learn more about my friend Robin at sexwithrobin.com