Unzipping Taboos: Candid Conversations about Sex - Consent Isn’t Just for Sex: It's Bigger than the Bedroom

Episode Date: January 21, 2026

In this episode of Unzipping Taboos, we talk about consent as something that lives far beyond sex—and how often it gets missed in everyday interactions.We explore what consent looks like in friendships, workplaces, classrooms, healthcare settings, and long-term relationships, especially in moments where it’s easy to assume instead of ask. From scrolling through someone’s, to sharing private conversations, to touching someone casually, or continuing an argument when the other person is pulling away—we unpack how often boundaries are crossed without anyone naming it.We talk about implied consent, power dynamics, and why “I didn’t mean harm” isn’t the same thing as having consent. We dig into non-verbal cues, withdrawal, and the importance of taking a beat when someone goes quiet, steps back, or needs space—even when that feels uncomfortable. We also discuss consent in healthcare and elder care, where autonomy and privacy are often overlooked, and why consent still matters even when there’s a baseline duty of care.This conversation is about noticing patterns, unlearning habits, and practicing consent as an ongoing process—not a one-time checkbox. As we say, this isn’t about shame or judgement. It’s about awareness, responsibility, and learning how to respect boundaries in meaningful ways that build trust and connection.If you have a story, thoughts and/or a topic or question for Dr. Sue and Charlie please share your ideas here:  ⁠Show suggestionsIf you want to ask Dr Sue a sex question for the weekly Q&A you can submit it here: Ask a question

Hey, everyone. Welcome to Unzipping Taboos, candid conversations about sex with Dr. Sue and Charlie. We're here to explore the questions you've always been curious about, but don't always feel comfortable asking out loud. No judgment, no shame, just open, honest conversations. So zip down and let's get candid. Before we unzip today's episode, we have now partnered with jackandjilladult.com, one of the top online adult stores, and because you're here with us. Here with us. Oh my goodness, my voice. And because you're here with us, you get 20% off with code UNZIPPING20. So please go check them out. Now that I've got that business out of the way, today we are unzipping Consent Beyond the Bedroom. I'm excited about

this one. But before we do, hey, Dr. Sue. Hey, Charlie. How's it going? All right. Cold. Yeah. Cold and wet. yeah yeah well you want to give you want to give our listeners a little bit about your background before we unzip i do and i'm actually gonna do a really good job this time because that one person pissed me off so much um so yeah um i have a phd in human sexuality education um i have two

other degrees in health education um i kind of do the professor thing the professor thing by day there really should be a shirt um i teach i present i write books i publish articles um and then i do a lot of work outside of that because not only people in college deserve education about sex and so i talk basically anywhere someone is willing to have them come out and talk um and on sundays every sunday people will submit anonymous sex questions to me through my website and then every sunday at 9 p.m um i eastern i will i don't feel like i should say eastern i'm such an eastern snob like just eastern i will answer one question and post it all over social media and yeah i feel like i should have done more because i was like i'm gonna do that well but

yeah all right phd phd in human sexuality is the takeaway there dr education dr dr sue um um i have a funny story about that that i'm not going to tell today but anyway that's that's enough about me well for now um so for those of you who do and do not know um charlie who is our curious co-host you heard her open up the show um she is always ready to have those challenging conversations about those things that we are not usually willing to discuss openly in this country. Do you want to tell us more? Sure. Yes, I am that. I like to challenge and not to be contrary, but it comes from curiosity and a desire to unpack the layers that we all operate, have learned throughout our lives and operate through each day to navigate

our lives and, you know, really examining which ones serve not just yourself, your character, your energy, but help you just be more present and help us be more aware of where we are and the ripple effect of our actions and the ripple effect, how ripple effects come and impact you. And I say all of that because it's a lot of just looking at certain issues or topics which is why being a co-host of this podcast is so perfect, because it really invites the opportunity to continue to chip away at some of the layers that maybe I have always just taken a status quo, and some listeners as well. And I just, it's always a conversation born out of

curiosity maybe sometimes a little bit of well that's stupid um but but unpacking like maybe why i think that's stupid and is it indeed objectively stupid so so um when sue at dr sue and i became friends we found we had this kind of similar um penchant i'll say um to to have these kinds of discussions and chip away at these things and then just having dr sue be such a long time badass to borrow um our one of our guest terms for her annette um and just the way that that we found our cadence with having conversations even when we don't agree and always coming from a place of curiosity and seeking to help each other understand our, not just our perspective, but maybe the perspectives of others that we can see. So

here we are, that brought you all of that dynamic and chemistry brought you unzipping taboos, candid conversation. So you're welcome world. I'll flex a little hubris, but I'm fine with it. So today, Consent Beyond the Bedroom. This is one we've had in our parking lot for a while. Yeah, and I need to just do a little housekeeping thing. For those of you who are just listening, this is not a thing for you. For those of you who are watching, I'm not in my normal space,

and I have no idea what to do with my hands. So I am very aware of that. When I'm in my regular recording space, I do a lot of hand gestures that are just off screen. I don't have that ability here. So I just want to own that up front. So my apologies for those of you watching. And if you are listening, I'd be glad you're listening. This could be one of the most commented on episodes. More hand gestures. Yeah. I just don't know where to put them. So I just wanted to own that at the beginning. So there you go. They're going to go right here for now. All right. Until

I knock something over. But yes. Consent. Yes. Consent beyond the bedroom in our parking lot for a while. Um, mostly because just as we do kind of our pre-show prep and other conversations we have, um, even when we're not preparing for the show, we do maintain our friendship outside the show. Um, this, just the evolution of this notion of consent. And I know for me, um, my awareness of consent in non-romantic situations, non-partnered situations, non-flirting, you know, those types of things. I think I gave this story a couple of times as a result from our friendship and learning from you, the modeling that you do, the woman in the grocery store asking if I could help with groceries before assuming that she would just accept help. So today, I think we

just want to go into that the modeling the modeling consent um or not just giving but seeking non-verbal consent in situations that aren't always aimed at sex play or something along those lines yeah because i think that once you start doing something it becomes easier to do it i mean that's the whole thing about building habits like i didn't just discover physics there or anything um but I know for me like I used to use the word guys a lot and it is really a microaggression and non-inclusive and and I know it took me some time and now I use the word folks or hey yous because that's more part of my language but um making that making that change took effort and so I think one of the reasons we want to bring up this idea of consent and being

aware of it outside the bedroom is that right now we tend to only focus on consent when it is in a sexual situation and that kind of like relearning language or learning any habit sorry um the same way that you know unlearning habit or learning a new habit it it takes time and it takes effort and it takes thinking about it and more than just outside the bedroom because i've had conversations with my friends who are in long-term relationships some are married some are just long-term committed relationships and they get frustrated and you know those funny stories about their partners and what i realized is that they're angry at their partner for not asking consent for something but it had nothing to do with sex so they didn't feel like it needed to be

sought because they were already in a committed relationships and so there's this like well we committed to each other sexually so like apparently all the consent comes with that and that's not that's not how that works and i think the more we get used to learning how to ask for consent and learning how to hear no the easier in any situation the easier it is when we get into the bedroom and and consent should be part of our lives all the time like it has become a running joke in my friend group that when i send out a request for help by text it will always either start or end with the sentence no as a complete sentence really it's not about getting a no it should be about getting a yes but that's that's a whole that's a whole nother thing but it's it

becomes this and it's almost become a joke with my friends now they'll be like hey i need to ask that remember that no is a complete sentence and it becomes it's become a thing but now they are much more aware and they've told me the same thing you just told me i've become much more aware of how i'm asking for things or how i'm saying no to things and so it's like building the muscle of like how do we look for consent how do we tune into consent if that's something we even want to do because we do want to acknowledge that there are people out there who don't give a shit about consent yeah but that if that is something that you want to do how do we kind of build that muscle how do we learn to take it outside of the bedroom? Yes. So how do we do that, Dr. Sue?

I think we need to do it in a couple of ways. I think one of the things we need to do is take responsibility for us. And I think we need to start thinking about, am I assuming that there's consent here? And then the other thing is being able, and then how do I change? I guess that's three things right here. Here we go. Am I assuming consent? Here, the finger is going to come into play. I won't derail us here. Am I assuming consent? Am I modeling how to do this for those around me? Because that's also part of what we do, right? We learn from others how we're expected to behave. And this becomes a really big issue with parents. And I'm not sure if we're going get to that or if it should be a whole separate episode um but then also are you now learning to

become aware of when we've been in situations not in the bedroom um where we didn't realize that we had lost the ability to say yes or no it was just kind of built into certain situations and we felt powerless and we may have gotten angry because we didn't know why so recognizing that so it's recognize when it's happening to us and doing something about our behavior when we should be asking for consent. That's it. Just do those things and you're done. Bye. Do those things. Yeah. I think another piece of it too is the, is the hearing the no, receiving the no and not taking, not taking it, taking it personally, excuse me, not taking it personally or as an affront. So for example, I'm thinking of times maybe a friend or a parent is really excited

to show you something that maybe that they've rearranged in their office or their house or their car or whatever, but maybe you just don't have the mental capacity, the attention, the energy to, to match their excitement or support their excitement. So they say, can I show you something? And you say, no, thank you. Or no. And they proceed to drag you, not drag, that's, There's a loaded word. They proceed to take you to said subject of excitement that that seems innocuous. But the person who maybe doesn't isn't there can't receive that kind of stimulation, you know, mental stimulation. But yet you you didn't hear their no.

because maybe maybe because you're excited you're not just you're not trying to be a jerk or a dick or an asshole you're just so excited you're like oh you know you'll get excited maybe internally you're thinking oh they'll get excited when they see it or they'll be there anyway but if someone says no no thank you not right now maybe later yeah maybe there's something in them that they're recognizing that they just they want to be present for for what you want to show them this is carrying this example through. They want to be as present for what you want to show them. So let them come to you and say, hey, you were excited about that thing. Can I see that now? Yeah. I feel like you're talking about a very specific situation. No, no, no, not at all. Not at all. It's just one of those

things that I think it's those implied consent situations that I'm thinking of. Something so innocent as I'm, I'm excited to share an update and I want to share it with someone that I care about, that I love, that I know will support me, but I have no idea what's been going on in their day. I have no idea where their head's at. I have no idea how they're managing their own internal things. And so if they say, no, I need to hear that and say, okay, let me know when you're ready. Mm hmm. That is as simple as that. I can give a very specific example. In a work situation. A friend of mine was telling me how she's been listening to us and, and some of these stories. And yeah, thanks, friend. And she had a conversation with someone in leadership in her organization because she was taking on a project and she wanted his input. And so she asked him. instead of saying hey I did this thing give me your input she asked him and you know of course

he shrugged it off as kind of like well you know I'll do that I it was partly my idea anyway so I'll do it and and she shot back pretty quickly she said with well you know consents a thing and so he um she said he received it well he smiled and he said you're right consents a thing yes i would like to be involved so it's those those little day-to-day things that um to to what you were saying earlier exercising that muscle yeah those are the ways that you can exercise that muscle start to listen um and recognize different situations um when you're being approached or when you are thinking about approaching someone in any friendship work whatever we um so for my class um we use polling software that is based off their phones and we're

in the worst room i swear on campus i feel like we're underground in like a red red bunker because a lot of times the apps a good chunk of times the apps don't work and so my students are struggling with the app and i'll come up to them and before i stand over their shoulder and look at their phone i will say may i look over your shoulder at your phone and they're like yeah like duh because that's yeah they're gonna default to me and it's so funny because it's really important to me that i'm modeling it because and it has become a little bit of second nature for me because i talk about this for decades now but i never approach you know if someone's writing in their book i'm not going to come up and be like oh what are you writing i'm going to be like can i take a look

at what you're writing or you know they're like i need help with this and i'll say can i look at your screen and they always have that moment of like yeah I asked you to come over but and then it's good because when it's my sex class you know I modeled that from the very beginning and then we get to about three months in and we start talking about consent and I start talking about how important it is to ask for consent for all things and like establish this pattern and you'll see like one or two little like light bulbs go out in their head and they're like oh that's what we've been doing all year that's going to be so satisfying as an educator when you see those little points connect it is absolutely why i do the job that i do um but for a lot of them and

this gets into i know something we were talking about in the pre-show it's this idea of that in certain power dynamics that consent does not need to exist um oh that i didn't actually mean that it didn't need to consent the the imposition the i that's not the word implication thank you the implication is there that that that it does not exist not that it really doesn't or that it's blanket that it's right that yes is there it's a blanket consent you said yes once and now i have rights to do whatever i want all the time and we do we will bring this back into dating by the way yeah um it's not this episode and the follow-up um but in situations in a professor student situation there is oftentimes this assumption of power and yeah there is a different power

dynamic but that doesn't mean that i can't be respectful and ask consent um but the one that we were talking about is medical care yes and just health care in general and i talk about this a lot when i talk to folks who work with seniors um because seniors do have a right to privacy even if they're in a facility and they do have a right to sexual expression and when you're doing the hospital knock we all know it's the knock on the door as i open it yeah yeah so like if you're in assisted living or you're with someone and someone's masturbating or they're partnered and suddenly you're walking in, that wasn't really consent. Consent is knocking on the door and then waiting for the, yes, come in or hold on one minute. But having spent a lifetime in

healthcare in this country, there is this idea of you're in this situation, we're allowed to do to you what you want. And I get it. And this is a great way we can mirror what we're going to talk about with dating i don't expect my like my nurse or my mp or my tech to come in and be like may i now take your blood pressure may i now take your pulse may i now put the pulse ox on your finger may i now do it like that becomes redundant and that's how it can feel sometimes in relationships too like we were joking that theoretically it's not just about penetration that you need consent theoretically you need consent all the time but like that can be a lot for everything I'm kissing you now

may I put my hand here now may I move it two inches now may I do this would you like my hand on your thigh yes or no and that can take away from the moment unless you're building that into like role play which could be really fascinating

so we get it like it can feel tiring it can feel weird I do though have the rate if you're coming in and I don't like how you're talking to me, or I don't really want you to take my blood pressure today because I have concerns about what it may say. And that was one of my questions, maybe about a medication. I do, when they go, okay, I'm going to take your blood pressure, I do have the right to say, I don't want to do that right now. But we think that just because

we're in a certain dynamic, we kind of lose that ability to just say that. I don't expect my doctor to, when I'm doing a physical, be like, and now I'm going to do each part of this physical. like we're having a conversation we're chatting my doctor is fantastic and will actually explain what they're doing as they're doing it which i think every doctor should yeah um but i have worked in clinic with doctors who don't explain when they're about to shove things into orifices which i have problems with so so we were talking about those two dynamics like in situations you know if i'm if i'm in a workplace scenario and what i'm being asked to do as part of my job i don't really expect to be asked consent to do it but maybe consent to the timing if that's possible

like i mean some people out there are like what am i supposed to do ask my students if they're ready to learn ask my you know admin aid if they're ready to do their job it's about i don't i'm having problems phrasing this because i have very very bad reactions when people ask me questions like that that are supposed to be like let me explain to you why consent is stupid which is what they're trying to imply. I think in those examples that you just gave, though, there is a baseline of duty, standard of care, right? If I take a job as an administrative assistant, there is a baseline of, as I just said, duty or standard of care to that role and expectations on certain performance tasks or tasks for that job because that job exists to

alleviate some workload um however it's the stuff beyond that yeah is is what we're talking about right and and and as you were saying as well if i'm an admin assistant and someone comes and says I need copies, there's two ways that can go. I can say, okay, not right now. Or they can say, I need the, I need 50 copies of these. When can you get these to me? Or something along those lines. So to set the expectation of the completion of a task. So, so we're not really, we're not really talking about that piece. And I'm going to keep using that, that term standard of care for some of these things yeah some of these examples what we're really talking about I feel is there are so many situations where people do think consent is implicit or as you said those people

trying to get you to say consent's not needed in that situation where it's it's it's just taking a be. Because it'll take some effort to start to practice this, but effort is an act of empathy and awareness and compassion. So if you want to be a little bit more aware of the people around you and how you impact them, this is one way to show them, model to them their value in your life, that you respect their time, you respect their space, you respect how they may be overwhelmed in a situation and that your ask layered on top of everything else may not be, may be the thing that breaks the camel's back. So it's really, it's really that. We're not talking, we're not talking about you know having having chores necessarily household day-to-day things to take

care of oneself or one's environment but we are talking about those extra things and then to bring it back to dating um there's flirting there's not like non-sexual touch you know hugging hand on shoulder or that kind of thing and when I think about relationships as well there's other examples where say you're in a long-term relationship and you planned a dinner for you and your partner at home a home cooked meal time to reconnect is what is in your mind and maybe they invite a relative over to join you without letting you know so if you're the partner that invited the relative over to join the dinner without asking that's one way to model seeking consent and giving consent yeah and i feel like that may be a really common example in partnered

relationships but but we won't chase the example we want to we want to highlight and emphasize the modeling around that example and just and to bring back the awareness of how much this exists in our relationships and because i do want to just go back to the the the work thing for a minute because there are people who work in situations where they don't get treated nicely and and their bosses don't give a shit if they want to do the thing that they want to do at the time yeah but we were the reason we were bringing that up is to kind of demonstrate that there are these places where there is this implied power and there's this implied dynamic that should not exist i don't feel like that should exist in your friendships and in your sexual

relationships um those are relationships where there should be consent and understanding and awareness of what the other person is thinking and feeling um and so i just yeah modeling it when we can in those situations not bringing a stranger to the house without telling our partner um not so this one gets me in troubles with my students okay so i i was doing in class one day we were talking about breaking up by text and we're not going to talk about we're not going to tell you we're not going to agree with that here because that could be a whole other subject and the men in my class were horrified to learn that girls will share their text conversations with their partners with their girlfriends like apparently this was not something

they were aware of that they will screenshot it and send it to their friends and be like this is what he said what do i say back like they were they had a moment and it was funny because they're like isn't that like sharing what i'm saying without consent like it is a hundred percent you are you're having a conversation with a partner and absolutely it feels violated it feels like a violation that the the words you were saying to one person are now being shared outside that relationship and it goes that's super defensive what was the difference from me just reading that and me just blah and me just doing this and you know i'm asking my friends for help and i'm like but this is when there is an intended conversation between you

and your partner and you are now sharing the intimate details um that can become a violation it can become a violation if you're going in to work and talking to your work wife or your work hubby about the fight that you had with your partner that is a violation of trust it's a violation of the consent of how far do these things go outside of our relationship there are a thousand and one ways that we can give you where this is a violation of the boundaries that were set up because we don't have those conversations, right? We don't have those conversations until the trust is violated. If I'm flirting with someone by text and they send me something highly inappropriate that I didn't ask for, now that boundary was crossed, but I didn't start

the conversation by saying, hey, I'll engage in flirty texts with you. Here are my boundaries because who the hell communicates that way like right and so it's it's really there's a thousand and one ways that we can see where that consent of that relationship is violated and we don't realize it's happening until we get angry about it and we don't realize it happened you know we realize it was important to us until it got until it hurt us and so it's like thinking about that that taking that one beat to be like okay i can tell my friends i had a fight with my partner do i need to actually share screenshots with them and violate the whole personal conversation that we were having um and so that i know we didn't talk about this in pre-show just

sorry sometimes i just blindside charlie candid conversations um there's i i see when we're talking about consent people are like well they said yes to sex play and i'm like but it's not about sex play it's about sharing of your relationship it's about talking about what happens in the privacy of your bedroom it's about all those things outside and then the things you're doing inside like well they agree to that once so they're okay with it all the time consent is a yeah consent has to be resought consent has to consent can change um it is a complicated process and i think that's that's what we don't get because we do things this is where i'm gonna piss off all the people who do rape education i cannot stand the term no means no the phrase no

means no because it's never it sometimes it is that simple no no absolutely means no but it's not always that cut and dry and when we've done nothing but teach you to tune into that word and now I'm not reacting with a no but I'm not engaging as much or I'm pulling away or I'm uncomfortable and I don't know how because we don't have to express it right I don't want to say no to you but I'm not okay with what just happened right I feel I there's some part of me inside that feels if I explicitly say no unequivocally I'll be in danger I'll I'll be coerced I'll put I'll be in an uncomfortable confrontation right and so my body is looking for ways to distance without having to give that word that may trigger some kind of confrontation

that is overwhelming or uncomfortable or dangerous yes so let me be clear sorry go ahead Well, go ahead and be clear because I was just going to add on to where you're headed. Yeah, sorry. And I did take a little bit of a right turn and then you turn at the same time. So sorry about that. I want to be really clear in saying that no means no. If you hear no, that's the end. That's it.

Stop. Done. Check in. No is a complete sentence. No is a complete sentence, but it's not the only way that people get to. It's not about not giving consent. It's about giving consent. It's not enough if someone doesn't say anything.

That's not consent. consent has to be something that they're saying verbally or with their bodies because so much of how we communicate is actually non-verbal and when you say something as simple as no means no you're tuning out the vast majority of how we actually communicate and so it's it's learning where those boundaries are but i just want to make sure just so when i get misquoted out of out of context no does mean no but it's there's so much more to it than that and that's not nearly as encompassing as it needs to be especially when you're in a long-term relationship because if i'm with my partner and i'm like hey i think i want to do this and i'm like no that feels like i just

shut you down completely and not just this thing but all the things that were going to come with it and so how do i navigate that without feeling like my partner's been rejected and i we don't teach those pieces of it because we don't talk about consent outside of this no means no and it needs to be much bigger. You're going to go somewhere else. So you could probably get a stock on track. No, I was, I, that's where I was going to head though, is that the no means no is very impactful and very accurate. No, no absolutely means no. The rest of that education though, is what do, what does nonverbal no look like? And how can we recognize it as either bystanders, to friends in situations or out out in the wild we'll say how can we recognize when we're seeing

someone maybe tense up or pull away or just do like if you're walking into a grocery store and you see two people engaging and you see one trying to pull away their body language is leaning away and the other one is how do you if you're okay and you feel safe saying just checking in hey you good looking at the person that's maybe leaning away that's i think the part that gets lost in the soundbite of no means no with with this kind of with consent education yeah because it also there it's it's so comprehensive um there's a lot there it's non-verbal but then when you point to a phrase and we've talked about this in other episodes when you create that soundbite that gimmick it gives so many people something to point to to say well i didn't hear

that so right right yeah and you know it's funny because i'll talk to my students and i'll talk to actually my non-students like this comes up a lot when i do education outside the classroom about consent and they'll be like how am i supposed to know non-verbals and like oh you know non-verbals you go home to visit family it's a senior not living at home you want to visit family you walk in the door and one of your parents is standing there with that look and their arms crossed and I see that I'm like what does that mean and I'll demonstrate it in class and I'll be like what does this mean they're like oh I'm in trouble I'm like but I didn't say anything so how'd you know we do know we absolutely know what that looks like now it becomes really confusing

with sexual situations because if I'm tensing in the middle of a sexual situation I could be tensing because it just feels so damn good that I'm like uh nobody feels really good I can't move take two seconds to say are you okay yeah you reach for your partner and partner pulls away from you in the grocery store hey you cool like what was that and we could just be like i thought you were gonna shock me like this is it's cold right now so it's like static season and i don't want people touching me because i've been shocked way more than i like it takes two seconds to be like are you okay if you see someone reacting poorly in a situation in public and you feel safe doing something about it i want to hammer that home that charlie said um are you okay

takes two seconds you okay that's it it takes two seconds well and to bring it bring it also to the flirting the dating meeting people in in the wild again i'll keep using that but but being in a bar like if if you make eye contact with someone and they look away immediately done that that's that's nonverbal that's no I don't want to engage or if you sit next to them at the bar and they turn their stools same way too yeah would have been funnier if we did it back to back right um those those are we all know nonverbal cues yeah um if you are listening and you're asserting that you don't then maybe examine that you just don't care to pay attention and that that's a lot of unpacking and maybe that's where those mental health professionals

that probably cringe when i say psychology hobbyist um can help you yeah but but i think and i i knew the very first time we did something on consent i was not happy with it because we had been assuming goodwill. And you and I had some really important conversations and we did a second part. And if you have no idea what we're talking about, you should go back into our vast library and you should check those out. Some people don't care. And I want to own that now on camera and on record because I was very bothered by the assumption that people have goodwill. And I know that that's not true. So some people will see you leave a room when you try to talk to them and will follow you because they understand you don't want to talk to them and they do not care

right so i do want to acknowledge that now and not eat myself up about it yeah yes well and that and that lends itself to this beyond the bedroom piece right if i'm in a relationship if i'm in a dynamic romantic relationship family dynamic whatever and i'm having an argument or something along those lines or confrontation, and I internally feel like I'm hitting a point where my continued engagement is not going to be productive or beneficial to the situation and myself, I will shut down and remove myself. If someone follows me, you are violating my autonomy and my consent because i have now demonstrated and maybe i've even said it explicitly i can't continue to talk about this i need to come back to it we need to stop

we're not going to stop because i have these things to say and i need blah blah blah yeah that's a violation and if if you're in arguments where maybe you find yourself being the person who's not ready to stop that argument. Also, kind of look at why. Why is it so important to resolve in that moment when maybe you guys have hit a point of diminishing returns in that moment? I'm not saying don't ever go back to it, but maybe it is more beneficial to take a breath and a beat. And so that's why, that's also why it's so important to look at those nonverbal cues and listen to the the statements that are no but not explicitly no oh what are you gonna write down i'm so curious i was gonna write this down because i feel like

maybe if i don't feel like we're gonna get to the state i want to mention the parenting thing at some point um i know we've talked about it before but i think that learning how to argue and learning your partner's style of arguing is something we never talk about or very rarely i don't want to say never um it's something we never it's very it's in very niche pockets and understanding how people are you like i'm on my argue style because i do this for a living like i'm aware of how i communicate i'm aware of how i like to communicate but i gotta tell you in the middle of an argument i'm not always paying attention to my partner and what they need because i'm in the middle of an argument um so maybe that's something for another i'm gonna

write it down instead of being like we should remember this i'm actually gonna write it down um so let me just finish you say something while i write please if that's okay with you i i will try and find something yeah if you're comfortable so it is that that non-verbal piece that really does get missed out on in so many situations um likely in situations where there is a power dynamic and so maybe the person who the subordinate doesn't feel like they can say no or demonstrate a no or resistance um but there there are tells and there are so many ways that we can pay attention to each other in a supportive way and not support as in oh my god I'm here for you no matter what kind of support support can be as

simple as looks like you need a minute I'm gonna I'm gonna go I'm gonna move on and I'm here when you're ready. That kind of modeling is applicable to, I think, almost any interpersonal relationship. Yeah, absolutely. I think the thing that we're getting at without really getting at is that the problem with consent and seeking consent is that it means I can't center myself. Because if I have to acknowledge that you don't seem okay with what I'm doing, I have to put my needs not in the middle of what's happening. If I leave that face or you use that tone that I know means this is no longer okay and I keep going, I'm now centering myself over what you need. If I say, hey, I need you to help me with something, can you help me? And you

go, no, and I get pissed, I am now centering myself. And I think that's the piece that we very rarely talk about with consent is that it's about not having to put your needs in front of everything else. Now, maybe there are times where it's important that you are having someone help you and you need that help right that second. We'll get it. Every situation is different. But it's about checking your, I don't want to say your ego, but it's about checking where you are in that relationship at that moment. You don't always get to be front and center. And I think that is hard for people and that's the nature of consent right because if I say hey will you help me with this and you're like no I can't do this right now or no I have other things or no I just

don't like you in this moment um I have to accept that and I have to accept that I am not the center of your world and that is hard for people to do and so I think it's the yeah it's that understanding that this whole world does not revolve around you and I think that's a lot of that's hard for some people to do it is it is and I think it is also just those situations maybe where you're seeking where you want someone to be excited about something with you or or what have you it is that it really is that it's there are so many things that we each balance and deal with day to day that, you know, it, it just, it's, it's not, it's rarely ever personal unless, it's rare.

It's rare. Unless it is. Unless, unless it is. Yeah. But it's rarely ever personal. And, and, but the other thing I want to be mindful of is, um, that in, in these, in this conversation that we're having today um we're not don't don't be a person that weaponizes it either yeah because that can absolutely become a thing um so it's just really this balance and making

space for each other because we're all we're all fucking trying man yeah and and if someone's in your life um in in a really kind of if someone's in your life no matter the capacity just be aware always try to maintain that awareness of how their presence on in any given moment is impacting you because then you also radiate that that energy those non-verbal cues um and it could just be that they came at they came to you after you had a really tough discussion at work and so they may they may receive it personally and you can say no it's just now's not the time has nothing to do with anything other than what what's going on in my head that takes a lot of sorry well and then the other thing that I wanted to, to highlight is that, um, dynamics shift moment to moment,

day to day, no matter the relationship in, in many ways, work can be a little bit more static, but even then, um, it can shift moment to moment and day to day. So those kind of the interpersonal dynamics are things to be aware of too to dr sue's point um taking that moment and getting used to the uncomfortability of de-centering your yourself um in in a certain moment is is very impactful and and a great tactic to begin to develop this muscle of of of being aware when when consent should be situations where consent absolutely needs to be given space i agree with all of that sorry for those of you not watching i'm nodding and you just can't hear the knocks the rocks nodding vigorously can't hear the rocks in my head

um rest all of that it's it's funny because what's coming back for me and i think we talked about this in the consent episode when we were talking about it was the the piece we had talked about where like someone holds a door for you and you say no thank you and they take that personally like that's a perfect example of like consent not being about you but what i was gonna say before just so i don't forget i have so many notes now that last two minutes was very rich um i was gonna say before is that being able to recognize that you saying anything to someone when they're not in the right place to hear it takes a lot of self-awareness and we don't really teach that we don't really teach people how to be decent human beings on a personal level like we teach

values but we don't teach them how to institute those we don't we don't teach people like I screwed up the other day I know hard to believe do you want to let me sit down harder I know like taking a mistake and then I realized I made a mistake like two hours later and I'm like oh I made a mistake and I remember when there's a point in time where I would have somehow still made it about the other person or I wouldn't have owned it and I went back I'm like hey um I screwed up a couple of hours ago and I'm sorry I said something was your fault and it wasn't and that was my bad and the person was like I don't know what to do with that and I'm like I just I made a mistake I'm owning it but like that wasn't I mean we do teach people to

own things in some ways when they're kids like well you know you should say sorry but it's that learning it and it's that modeling it and it's like the doing it um can I do like three random things before we talk about parents for like five seconds if we're gonna do parents today yes okay the one is that we were talking about non-verbals do you have friends or did you ever do this in a relationship where you had a signal with your partner of when it was time to leave no friends who do this I've done this before with partners like I'll say something and that's like the cue of like i don't want to be here anymore but it was i was somewhere recently for it's holiday season i was somewhere recently for a holiday party and like i saw him doing this

weird thing and i'm like what and then i saw the partner across the room like eyeballing it and then i see another like okay like we gotta go like they have set up this non-verbal which i thought was great um like queuing into we and what i really loved about it was that there had to have been a discussion about it ahead of time hey like when i tug on my i'm not gonna tell you what their signal is but when i tug on my ear that means it's time for the fact that there is a conversation about an expectation and what that means and that like trains that non-verbal start that popped up while you were talking um the thing i want to talk about that we haven't is how much physical there's two things i still want to get to the parents if we can um and if not it'll just

be another episode so just go banger um not much in the daily world physical touch happens without consent and without even asking for it and we don't mean in doctor's offices because again that's kind of we understand that when you go to doctors we're expecting to be touched um and a friend who's pregnant that's always a good example the amount of physical touch she has to endure and she's way too nice to say anything about it um but like i would never put my hands on someone's mouth and be like are you okay if i do this and the amount of times that we just assume that physical touch is okay because it's because we're not doing anything wrong or we're just trying to help them or whatever it may be like i'm astounded now the more i'm thinking

about this like how much we have physical touch without consent someone was trying to help me put on my jacket because sometimes I'm not so coordinated and it was really important to me I do it myself and they grabbed my arm to put it into a sleeve and I'm like oh god no no no no yeah um I probably didn't need the help but that wasn't the point the point was you don't just touch people and so I would challenge some of you some of you like I don't touch people but some of you you may do more touching than you realize and it may be a cultural thing there are definitely cultures where some people touch more and that's more of a a thing and I'm not going to say a love language because those things are such pieces of crap um but just to be aware of how much touch

is happening it's funny because when I'll say things about this to people um if they'll come back to me a week later and be like I didn't realize how much people touch me and I'm not okay with it I'm like yeah it's it got a little bit better during COVID right because we weren't touching at all yeah um yeah there's a lot of touch that happens for some folks that's either unwanted or they don't even realize they're doing it without consent so just kind of being aware of that yeah is there another thing do we have time for parents yeah you sure well I mean we'll see I don't know where you're gonna go either yeah I feel like we've also talked about this in other places the idea of how to set boundaries and i do get this question a lot from parents

how do i give my child agency but still effectively parent and that's a great question um i just i had someone who asked me a question of can i give my child shots without their consent i'm like well how old is your kid and they're like seven i'm like they get the shot because they don't understand the repercussions of not getting the vaccinations and if that's what you want to do to them as parents i think you should do it i probably just pissed off so many people um you don't get to decide i'm not going to the doctor when you're four because it does suck you know it does you're going to be touched and if you're in pain and now like they're touching body parts that hurt um when we're talking about modeling agency we are talking about things like

if you don't want to hug your aunt or your uncle then you don't have to that is that is a way that we can give children the ability to to control what's happening to them when it comes to me like I had someone who's like, well, my kid doesn't feel like eating. I'm like, not eating, not feeding your child. They have to eat, right? Like when they start hitting puberty, sometimes you have to remind them to shower. There is a thin line and I do not envy parents. I mean, I'm childless by choice.

I do not envy parents on how hard this is because at one place, you want to give them the ability to make decisions for themselves. And I got to tell you, I have friends who do not agree with when I say, like, I'll go to the house and be like go hug and i'm like and the kid's like i don't remember you yeah and i'll be like you don't have to if you don't want to and they will literally say to me no they don't have a choice i'm like well i don't want to hug them now so we're all good um and i do know that that's some people don't agree with it um but there is there is a thin line between saying over this you have agency you have the ability to not hug people you don't want to but also i'm

your parent and i need to look out for you um it is it is a hard line and if you feel like you can have conversation with them about where that line is as they get older because a two-year-old's not going to understand it sometimes you just have to say no and that's enough yeah um so it is a it is a hard line and all i can say to parents is just keep trying um and if you're running into situations specifically we don't know how to handle it let us know we'll we'll do a whole show on on specific situations if we get them um but it is a difficult line to process i mean when i was growing up one of the answers i always got was because i said so and that was it there's no arguing with that yeah yeah um and and a lot of times i was being told that it was because it was an absolute like i

wasn't going to do whatever the thing was um but then in other times i had the right to kind of learn what what was good for me and what i wanted to do but if i got hurt i was going to the doctor and the doctor was taking care of whatever was hurt and it was going to suck and i was going to hate it, but we were going to do it. And so I think that there's a thin line between, I think there's a murky line. I don't want to say thin line. I think there's a confusing line between how do I model for my child that they have the right to make decisions for their body, but also I'm responsible for that body. And I think that's where it can get confusing. Yeah. And if it's helpful to anyone who's trying to navigate that, go back to that,

just frame it as that standard of care from one to five, here's my standard of care. here's the expectations that I have been given that are expected of me to keep you safe and healthy from five to 10. And because going back to that idea of evolution as well, you want to give your children the space to get some nicks and bruises so they have some lived experiences to not put themselves in certain situations. But there is, as long as they're under your roof um there there are these levels of standard of care that do evolve as they get older um so maybe that framing can help yeah it's a great way of looking at it and and for and for your kid especially and it can be a great framework for those conversations as they get

older as well yeah just just a thought yeah i just i think it's i think it's hard to navigate because there's so many different things that happen at any given day where it almost feels like mixed messages um because i'm saying no you can't put your hand on the story while the flame's on but then i'm like go do what you want to you know go do what you want to do here but not in here right and i think part of the an example there is the no they have to hug you if you notice that your child is non-verbally showing you i'm so painfully shy in this adult party i'm hiding behind you shoving them out in front of you is not modeling an awareness of someone's non-verbal cues so so maybe maybe don't force them to go hug your friend or whatever um but

they can say hi say don't want to hug them just say hi yeah you can't be rude yeah right right but it's not really what we're calling for right here no no but it is showing them that's i think a little bit of that that line that you're talking about i'm saying no you need to go to the doctor we need to listen to the doctor and then i'm hosting a party with my friends and my seven-year-old is hides behind me every time my friends come over and you're shoving them in front of you or stepping, stepping behind them to put them in front of you, you're not really modeling that awareness of the nonverbal cues for consent and comfortability. We tried to speed through that word. So those, those are just some of the like little micro acts that, that show, that reveal

themselves when you become aware and start looking for them. Yep. Can we give people homework? Yes. Okay. I guess I'll say, we've been at it a while. I know, you got really excited. I was excited. Okay. Can you tell us something about this? I've seen how often it happens that I will talk about the unwanted touch and then people start tuning into it. So your two things for homework for eternity, because I don't know when you're listening to this. First thing I want you do is be aware of how much non-consensual, and not that it's bad touch when I say non-consensual because I don't want, well, it helped them. I want you to think about how much you either touch people without asking their consent or how much people touch you without their consent.

And then if you want to drop us a comment either publicly or in our, we'll have a link in our description for how to reach out to us and love to know what you're noticing. I had someone start counting once yeah um it was really disturbing for them once they tuned into how much it was happening so that's fun the first one is just be aware of the the touch that's happening and try not to qualify it like the person who's helping me with my jacket was like i was trying to help you i'm like that doesn't still doesn't make it consensual yeah um and the second thing i want you to do is just as stupid as it sounds before you go to do something that's really seem really liner just ask for consent start learning how to use that muscle of asking for consent

um if you need someone to help you just say hey can you help me um instead of just being like hey i need help with this um ask them for consent just just try it once in the next couple days and it's going to be really awkward and they may even be like what are you practicing a self-help book um but i would love if we could just get all get to that point where it's just such a part even if it becomes a running joke like yes I'm going to ask you for consent because that's what we do great thank you um so zero teamwork assignments yeah I mean I would add some situations there you know you have a friend who who is venting rather than jumping in yeah sorry I was very excited by that um but rather than jumping in to give advice well first that's not the model

and then also um if you have advice and you ask hey i i have some thoughts can i share them no i'm not in a space right now i just really need i just really need you to listen to me and and be here for me i do that with you i do it with you all the time and i do it with you so my friends will sort of recall and they'll be angry about something and then and I'll start with hold on before we go forward am I listening to listen or am I listening to help and it's so funny because I'll be in a conversation with all my friends like oh crap I figured to ask what do you need um and what I what I always find really interesting is that some people don't know what to do with that because they've never been asked yeah so I'll

say to like I was talking to someone recently who's newer to our friend group and I was like hey like what do you just so I know like are you just venting you want me to like agree with you because I can do that but you want me to answer it and she's like I don't know because no one ever asked her what she needed and what she wanted and so so don't be surprised if you try that by the way and a person's like can I just talk to you like why do we have to make this so complicated yeah sorry I was very excited about it no that's okay and then um on those on those instances maybe where you the part of the homework assignment you know if you're going to help someone or someone's going to help you. If you're the one going to help, it is so powerful to just

ask, Hey, can I help? Yep. Um, because there are a lot of assumptions when you go into just take over and you don't know, again, we don't know what we don't know. We don't know where that person is or what they've been struggling with. And so being able to put on their jacket on their own that day could have been the biggest win for them and intervening it's just it's about recognizing people's autonomy emotionally and physically as well that's why consent is so important so Charlie are you telling me that I should never just like hold a door for someone or offer to carry something for someone if it looks heavy no I'm not saying that I'm saying ask because that's what I'm afraid people are going to be like oh should I help people

no you you ask them yeah just ask or if you go to if you go to do it and like i'm not going to be like can i hold the door for you i'll hold the door and if someone's like i'm good i'll go through it yeah or if they hang back and put their hand on the door i get it i'm gonna go through first it doesn't have to be i mean sometimes it is that complicated especially when we're getting into murky especially and people aren't listening this doesn't have to be that complicated folks right or regional etiquette conditioning yes we're calling out the south i was gonna say looking at you the south yeah but i mean there are times like i've been with someone i'm like that looks really heavy and i'll i'll go to offer my hands and say can i help and i'll be like no i

got this and like you said there may be that that's the heaviest thing they get to lift that day and it's their thing or maybe that this is the first time they they feel like they can do something powerful for themselves it doesn't have to be uh i was told i need to ask to consent so here's my third part question yeah hey can i help with that no okay cool have a great day stay warm yeah that's the end of all my sentences now but yeah it can be a sim we're not saying don't be a nice person or don't try to help others but just realize that you're saying ask yeah your desire to help may not be what they need in that moment just recognize that even if it's even if it's your partner you may not know what they need in that moment so yeah that phrase

is so powerful right there your desire to be in in whatever situation um look at yourself as an as an option not a requirement in those situations so for the future the question is going to be hey charlie i think we have a whole sub series now yeah are you saying it's never okay to center myself but that's i'm not that's gonna be for another episode that's gonna be another episode somewhere else and this is how the spin-off hey charlie are you saying well everyone i want to thank you for joining us on this episode of unzipping taboos candid conversations i think this was a really important conversation because i know that we have had several episodes centered around consent and sex play but really modeling consent outside of sex

play and, and romantic motives is really important. Um, not just for your partnerships, but for every, every interpersonal relationship or an encounter you may have. So we hope you enjoyed today's episode and that it will spark new conversations, uh, open up, um, sparked new thoughts, pardon me, and open up conversations worth having. Remember that your curiosity is the key to breaking down these barriers and embracing a healthier understanding of sex and relationships. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe, leave a review and share it with someone who you think might need to hear this. And if you've got a question or a topic you want us to unzip, please reach out to us via the link in the episode description. I want to give a huge

thanks to jackandjilladult.com for supporting Unzipping Taboos. Don't forget, you can get 20% off your order with code UNZIPPING20. Another huge shout out to Allie O'Brien for incredible theme music. Thank you so much, Allie. And until next time, keep the conversations going, keep unzipping those taboos, and everyone, take care.