Unzipping Taboos: Candid Conversations about Sex - Curious About Ball Busting? You’re Not Alone

Episode Date: March 4, 2026

In this episode, we unzip ball busting—a kink Dr. Sue gets asked about regularly through Hey Dr. Sue, and one that’s often surrounded by judgment, confusion, assumptions, and quiet shame. We talk plainly about what ball busting is and why having accurate language can make these conversations feel less awkward and a lot more human. We focus on what actually matters when it comes to any consensual kink—communication, consent, and safety—covering boundaries, safe words, check-ins, and aftercare, while also clearing up common misconceptions about fetishes along the way. Above all, if you’re curious about or enjoy ball busting, there’s nothing wrong with you.This episode is about answering real questions with care and without judgment. It’s about making space for curiosity, normalizing honest conversations, and reminding listeners that kink—like all aspects of sexuality—can be explored responsibly, safely, and without shame.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. Dr. Sue and I are here to talk, to explore the questions about sex that you've always been curious about, but don't always feel comfortable asking out loud. It's no judgment, no shame, just open, honest conversations. So zip down and let's get candid. Before we get into today's episode, I want to let you all know that we have now partnered with jackandjilladult.com, one of the top online adult stores. And because you're here with us, you get 20% off your order with code UNZIPPING20. So go see if you find something new and fun to explore. Now that I've got that out of the way, I'm here with Dr. Sue. Hey, Dr. Sue, how's it

going? It's going well. How are you, Charlie? I'm doing all right. Today's episode, we're going to focus on a question you get pretty frequently on hey dr sue right yeah we're gonna we're gonna talk about ball busting and uh give a little bit about information about kink and bdsm and and that'll be the adventure today the taboo which really is yeah there are many things about About sex and sexual health that are taboo. And I would say this is probably one of the top three. Yeah. Kink and BDSM. Before we do that, why don't you give us a little bit about your background? Sure. So I started off, I wanted to be the health teacher. Like I wanted to be a high school health teacher. Like that was the dream.

So I went to school to become a teacher. I have a bachelor's degree in health education. i have a master's degree in health education and then i was like let's go lose my mind for a few years and get a phd because you didn't have anything going on yeah you know i wasn't like working 15 jobs um so i got a phd in human sexuality education uh because this was one of those topics that like almost everyone seemed to want to talk about but like there was never really a space for it a valid space for it and valid non-judgmental all the things we say in our opening. So I got the PhD and then I did what good little PhDs do. And I got a job in academia and I love my job in academia. So by day I do the professor thing. I teach, I write, I lecture,

I do presentations, all those PhD things. But then, oh, we were just counting. So it'll be almost five years since I started doing Hey Dr. Sue. So I was having some moments where I was this information belongs to everybody. I really hated the fact that the stuff that I was talking about was really limited to the people who were just in my space. And so I started doing some work in the community. And sometimes I do presentations for kids. Sometimes I do presentations for folks 70 plus. Sometimes I do presentations for folks who work with kids and work with kids. I do bar trivia, like wherever people want to have me and give me a space to talk about this, And it's, it's always been interesting for me, the people who kind of come up to me and

ask me questions afterwards. I bet. Yeah. And sometimes it's like, they wait until everyone leaves the room. So I'm like packing up. And they still kind of whisper their question. And yeah, and it's funny, because when I do this in senior centers, actually, I want living facilities, not senior centers, where like you go, but you go home to your own house,

but places where people live together, they're not going to ask these questions, because they're gonna have dinner with them later so it's like it's like they're queuing up at odd spots outside my room to like see if anyone's in there um anyway so I started doing more community work and then I realized that with the internet I could do community work everywhere and so um in my spare time I in my spare time people will submit sex questions to my website and we'll include a link to that in the description and then every sunday at 9 p.m eastern i post one question one answer and what got us started on this was that i answered one question about ball busting and then i had like a flood of them and i yeah when we were coming up with topics you know we

look at kind of what i'm getting for my questions and this is definitely one we needed to do because we need to talk about some of the stuff openly without judgment and all the other things you say in our intro but before we do that i'm not in this i'm not on the salute i'm not on the strip solo so for those of you who do and do not know charlie i feel like everyone knows you know but for those of you who are just tuning in for this episode um charlie is our curious co-host who is always ready to discuss all the things that we find taboo in this country related to sexuality and reproductive health and and really just have those honest conversations and i think one of the things I like the most about talking to you is that you're not like I this is my thing

and I'm changing my mind there are times really like okay I was wrong like like you listen and because that's part of the curious nature of who you are like you want to learn and part of learning is adapting what we believe anyway you should you do a better job of explaining you than I do I that was pretty fucking stellar so I'll take it and I'll let's move on you gotta say something. If I have to do an intro, you have to do an intro. I'm Charlie. I've been friends with Dr. Sue for many a year. And I am someone who has always been curious about why we are told the things we're told in society, why we believe and perpetuate some of them, and ones that maybe we don't have to anymore and kind of unpack that and and figure out why we hold on to those and

anchor ourselves to those um so that we can human together better i feel like that's the show i feel like we're gonna have a lot of things that are like taglines i feel like that was the merch for the show thank you better humans together do human but however you phrase human together better there we go i also feel like there's going to be a lot of air quotes with the silhouette of my of my pink hair there you go there we go so if we have any marketing merch designer geniuses out there um all that's trademarked um i'm not i don't think that's how that trademark thing works i think his actual paperwork uh copyrighted it's copyrighted there you go um so all right well we did uh we did come up with a a way we wanted to approach this episode yeah and i think one of

the first things when we're approaching a topic that is so taboo in our society um i think we need to first give some common definitions so listeners, myself, have an understanding, like the baseline understanding of what we mean when we say kink and BDSM in today's episode or in any other episode, really. So let's start with kink. So technically speaking, and I'm trying very hard, we did this in the pre-show, it's like I do not want to go down the professor route of this. of like i need like a buzzer for you do i need to zap you when you do it um a kink in human language a kink is anything that kind of goes outside here come the air quotes um i have anything that goes

outside kind of the norms of society and i already despise that definition because we know that people do more than we think they do behind closed doors um but technically anything that kind of breaks that accepted societal very heteronormative view of sexuality we kind of call a kink what i love is how we've adapted that to be very normalized in our in our culture like i'll hear people like talk about something i'll be like i really like like red cherries that's my kink and i'm like that is absolutely not a kink but i love that we're owning the word and using it in everyday language um so yeah technically a kink is anything that's kind of outside the norm lots of air quotes for those of you listening lots of air quotes today because the norm is so

we don't really know what the norm is subjective it's so subjective and it's such a lie like right it's only it's only that because of what society or community you're in right so it can even shift they wholly based on where you live what country you you're in the really if you're the decade if you're in a country where there's a predominant religion what that dictates so it is truly so the norm normal air quote all over the place sexual behavior is entirely subjective because it's something that your society layers on top and we talk sex play sorry we we talked about this in a bit when we did the whole thing about morality and sex and the sexual yeah we did kind of an episode that talked about what we know people what we think people do what people

say they do and then what people do behind closed doors are very are often very different things um and so I want you to keep that in mind as we go through this today because if I start describing your behavior and you're like wait I do that and I'm into it what's wrong with me nothing or if you're like hey I'm really interested in what you're talking about what's wrong with me the answer is nothing as long as you're doing it in a consensual way like that's that is always the root of this for me well of anything we really talk about um so don't i don't want to get hung up on that but we do want to throw out at least what that word kink means but i do i hear people use it all the time now like out of a sexuality context which i love because

that kind of normalizing that word yeah helps us move us forward as a culture yeah great all right so then next is bdsm yeah so funny enough there's no like so most people agree that it's bondage and discipline and sadism and masochism. But then some people say, whoa, whoa, whoa, we can translate some of that different and we can put in dominating and submissive. So then it becomes combinations of those words. But for the general public, they usually think bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism. Sadism is, sorry, the English language is hard today. masochism is where we're doing things to other people and sadism is when well nope got that backwards i do that all the time sadism is where we get off on hurting other people or humiliating

other people masochism is when we like being humiliated or hurt in a controlled environment with communication and consent yes um dialogue but some people do like to say that the the it would be bondage, discipline, dominance, submission, sadism, masochism. So there's a couple of different ways that we can kind of look at those words. But essentially, it's about pain or humiliation and control is really what a lot of those break down to. All right. Well, if we were in front of a live audience, I'm sure we would have a little question clarification moment right now but we're not so yet um so getting into the specific um kink the specific interest there we go i was trying to find a better word i like that yeah

no but um and ball busting yeah and i want to apologize because if i say ball busting enough the brooklyn accent will come out a little bit on it just does and i apologize i've been fighting it all day with some of the stuff I've been saying. So I apologize. So ball busting is when you deliberate. Sometimes we call it cock and ball. There it is. Ball. Sorry. Cock and ball torture. Sometimes it's just about the balls. Sometimes it includes the penis. So ball busting is when you are essentially putting pressure or hurting, like causing pain to the testicles or you are putting pressure on the testicles so so it's i wish you could see my head gestures off screen right now um but that's essentially what it is it's putting pain it's it's it's hurting

or putting pressure on the testicles and then if we involve the penis it's usually called cock and ball torture does that there we go at the end of the episode all right well let's move on thank you everyone what are some of the questions that you get well and i do want to say it's interesting i've never gotten questions about this there is a female version of this it's called i'm gonna say the word as it is and i know some people may find that that term offensive i'm not changing the language because that's not that's how it's known um so there is such a thing called cunt busting which is where you're essentially hurting pressure doesn't work the same way because not an external thing um the the vulva which is the outside of female genitals and or

specifically focusing on the clitoris. It is not uncommon, but I have not gotten any questions about it. And I kind of thought once I opened that ball busting one that I was going to start getting a flood of questions about con busting. So that is a thing. And if you're like, wait, I have one of those body parts and I didn't know there was a name for it. And I like it. That's the name for it. So a lot of the questions I get about ball busting is what's wrong with me. and I really try to normalize that behavior because there's not I mean there's something wrong if we live in a society that says that we don't people don't enjoy this but we know people enjoy pain yeah like society's playing yeah um so so I try to normalize that and again with the

idea that it as long as it's consensual like that consent piece is really big and I think that's a lot of people miss in bdsm is that a lot of if for most of the time there's always going to be practitioners who do it differently but for most of the time there is a very clear communication about what is acceptable what is not you know what's off limits what's a no what's a yes what's a maybe depending on the circumstance there's a discussion um about safe words or safe actions which i feel like we've talked about before i believe we have okay let me just do it real quick then so safe word is a word that will stop what is happening instantly um it should not be a word that comes up normally in conversation so touch me is not a great not a great don't yeah

um i i know for some reason pineapple like i would joke about safe words and so i'd be like pineapple and i feel like pineapple was coming up everywhere um but something that doesn't fit like the environment, and that's cleared, easy to say, and clearly can be heard. In some situations, you may not be able to talk. Like there may be something in your mouth, you may be face down and sound can't get out easily. In that situation, it could be a safe action. So dropping something in a way that can be seen and or heard. So it could be something that makes a loud noise when it hits the floor or jingles. But usually, and again, I'm saying usually because there are private practitioners who may do these very differently in their

relationships but usually there is conversation about what is an absolute no what is an absolute yes what is a maybe depending on the situation um what is a safe word what is a safe action and what does aftercare look like have we ever talked about aftercare we have okay i'm so glad you remember these things i can barely remember what i had for breakfast um and then what does aftercare look like so there is a lot of conversation that goes into things like this and i don't remember how I got here I were talking about the types of questions and and primarily you get questions that are what's wrong with me I like it yeah yeah and thank you um and so the thing is like there's nothing necessarily wrong with it it just you may not be doing in a way that you know works because

I can go and I mean you can see porn that involves ball busting or BDSM but a lot of times like if I'm having a relationship with a partner you know there's these things we've seen on TV about how things are supposed to progress. We may never have seen something about that around a kink or fetish or BDSM or specifically ball busting. So people may not know what's normal about it. So there's a lot about is it normal? That's one of the big things. One of the other questions I get a lot of is, it's usually phrases, how did I get to be this way? Or what made me broken? That was one of the ones that broke my heart um you're not broken so when it comes to fetishes in general we have theories theories are theories yes we did not cover the word fetish oh yeah that's an

attraction to an unnormal thing unconventional unconventional or different yeah there's a lot of air quotes for those of you just listening so i want to point out these are theories and what we know about theories is that they haven't been proven. So we might be back here a year from now talking about a brand new theory. But there's a couple of theories. One is that you're just hardwired to like these things. So when it comes to pain, if you like someone stepping on your balls or someone putting your balls in a cage and putting heat really close to them or stabbing them gently with needles or not so gently, you could just be hardwired for pain. Some people are The same way some people are hardwired to, like, cold or some people are hardwired to, like, warm or some people, you know, it could just be a hardwiring thing.

The other theory is that we experienced something like that and we liked it. Which makes sense. More of it. Right. Like, doesn't that make sense? Yeah. So the idea is, like, maybe you were with a partner and your partner did something, could have been on purpose, could have been by accident. Like maybe your partner went to get up off the bed and accidentally put their knee on your balls as they were trying to like lever it or they were falling and like it wasn't intentional, but it hurt and you got turned on by it. Or they did it with permission, I'm hoping.

There was a little bit of pain and you had the best orgasm of your life. And so now you're like chasing that and you want to feel that again. And you found you really enjoyed the feeling. And I feel like that to me, like, yes, there may be that hardwiring piece, but I do feel like it's like we enjoyed it. So we want to repeat it. That, to me, makes absolute sense into why this might happen. Well, it does make sense, because oftentimes when we're trying to recreate experiences, it's because of the rush of the chemical reaction internally that we get that releases all those feel-good chemicals that we have. So of course, you want to feel that again. And that's the other

thing to acknowledge here the only reason you if if you're into this and you've worried that you're not air quote normal or there's air quote something wrong with you that's only because this has been treated as such a taboo practice and so I think we'll reiterate this several times more in the episode there's nothing wrong with you if you like ball busting or cunt busting there's nothing it's it's it's not it is what you you like you like what you like yeah and and as long as as long as you're doing it safely and consensually yeah and i think that's one of the things i want to come back to because when i say the word torture like that tends to throw people off so when i talk about cock and balls cock and ball torture um people like oh torture there should

still be conversations about how far that's going to go. Again, I'm going to say this, 98% of making that number up, 98% of people who do this, they do have all those conversations at a time. I'm sure there are people who are in relationships or situations where there may not be those conversations. What I often find is that the BDSM world has better handle on open communication than the, I don't want to call it vanilla because I feel like that's judgmental, which is why the air quotes immediately went up i feel a little nixon mainstream what was that mainstream yeah yeah because i do find that people in the bdsm world refer to sometimes people who don't do those as like vanilla and i i a little bit find that offensive because it's judging in

a way that you've been like right it's that i got labeled so i'm going to label other people i'm not a fan of that um but what i find is that like the concepts of consent and the concepts of like how far are we taking this are so better organized and better played out in the bdsm world than it is in the non-bda the more mainstream world um and for those of you like that's not true if you're in a long-term relationship i would like you to think about the last time you had a conversation with your partner about what you actually wanted and your limits yeah right yeah so i just want to throw that out there but i know i use the word torture it should still be consensual and there should be those conversations. Oh, go ahead. No, no, go. I can stay on talk. Do you get questions

about, um, maybe not so much centered around what's wrong with me, but I found out I really like this. How can I be safe about it? Or what are, what are, what am, is there anything I'm missing out on that will make it even more pleasurable for me? Yeah. And so I always tell, I like to tell people to try to ease their way into it, because if you've never been hitting the balls on purpose, or maybe if you have by accident, sorry, I was thinking that one through, it can be really overwhelming. The pain could be, and you can do this wrong. You can do this away.

And that's actually the note that I have that I was just about to go to. It is possible to cause long-term damage. So if you are thinking about getting into it with a partner, you need to make sure the partner is well-versed in what they can and cannot do that will not, like, you don't want to cause severe damage there's a difference between pain and injury um and again some people are like i don't care like let's just go all the way to the limits but you're also now involving someone else and potentially causing long-term damage you can cause long-term damage to your testicles it's absolutely possible um if you've ever been hit in the nuts you know that it feels

like your entire life is now that and it because i get a question i get lots of questions and it's interesting i get lots of questions about being hit in the balls and i don't know how many of his like i got hit well one was very specific that it happened at a martial arts class so i know how that happened but i get a lot of questions about like i got hit or i had pressure or someone shot me with a bb gun in the testicle and part of me is like was that just like fucking around or was like that and you don't want to say it because was it a dare yeah um you can cause serious damage. So I just want to put out the do's and don'ts of the serious damage to the testicles. So if you get hit in the nuts, you are probably going to drop to the floor. If you can,

if you're being restrained, that might not be an option. If you have pain that lasts more than a clock hour, and I say a clock hour because I just got hit in the nuts time. 30 seconds is two days. Yes. So what if it's been more than a clock hour and the pain has not subsided? That's a problem. And I would suggest seeing a health care professional. If you are peeing blood or there is blood coming from your nuts, that's an absolute go to health care professional. You can cause something called testicular torsion if you get hit the right way, which is, I got to get my hands above the mic stand here. the the spermatic core the testicle will actually twist and you can cut off blood supply that's like a go to the doctor that thing's gonna have to be removed so yeah yeah so if it's been more than an hour and the pain is still super intense you're still nausea nausea might last but you're you're vomiting or there's blood in your urine or there's swelling that's not going down that hour is that key mark i 100 understand that there is going to be a ton of embarrassment

if you have to go to the health care professional for this it's still important that you do it so i just want to those are my general guidelines but i do say clock hour because guys are like if you've ever been hit in the nuts like you said 30 seconds is like a lifetime um so yeah so there is possible to do trauma to it um especially if you're stepping on it or pressing it because that can be where the buildup is happening and you don't notice how long it's happened like if you're slowly putting pressure on it um interesting thing we see the same thing with nipples sometimes people who put nipple clamps on like you don't want to leave them on forever because especially if they've been on for or you keep slowly tightening them you're not going to

realize how much you're losing sensation in them and you don't want to lose sensation in your nipples. So random nipple fact. I feel like we should have more of those. Random nipple facts. Random nipple facts. Nice. What are some of the other questions you get around ball busting? Or is it mostly around how can I do this safely? And what's wrong with me? It's a lot about what's and again, I want to keep coming back to there's nothing wrong with you just like something that's not mainstream, or it's more mainstream than you might realize. I think there's three other hold on let me let me write them down oh you're drinking so you can't vamp for a second hold oh no that's okay

the what I find um what I find yeah what I find fascinating is that it's all about every couple of weeks you get a ball busting question yeah and hey Dr. Sue it's it's at least once a month yeah it's and it's it's i think it's because someone found one of the original questions whether it was about ball busting or whether it was about injuries to testicles and they have questions um and they found someone who lands i'd like to think that they found someone who'll answer them in a non-judgmental way well and i point out the frequency because i want to use that to highlight how if you're if you're out there listening to this how not alone you are in perhaps enjoying ball busting or um i mean you don't get a whole bunch of questions on

cunt busting but that there is a term for the female genitalia equivalent so it's not it's not as uncommon as society would have you believe i think the reason yes all of that yes and it's funny because I was having a conversation with one of my graduate classes once about composting. And someone's like, isn't that all porn? I was just like, I love when we do the head tilts. Because their thing was that porn is so misogynistic and so violent that it would seem like that's included in all of them, which we then had a great conversation that there's feminist porn and not all porn is violent. I mean, the vast majority of porn is misogynistic um but not all porn involves that kind of violence yeah um so it's a really

fascinating conversation but what it led to was kind of what you were talking to it's we don't talk about it because it's it's seen as more acceptable to be violent towards female bodies and less towards men's body in a sexual way totally normal against men's bodies in general in mass media like if you look at the violence in our media but when it comes to men's bodies we often do not unless it's a punch line talk about men's generals being hurt um because that violence against because it is seen as violent that violence against men's generals is not nearly as accepted and so that's that's where that line is about like talked about and then like the taboo do you ever get questions um surrounding this that the the person asking

is concerned maybe they're hetero and you looked at my what you cheated again you can see my paper I know that's how good I am so I do get those questions especially if the Not so much about just in general, because if it's like, hey, my girlfriend's doing this to me or my wife is doing this to me, you know, does that make me gay? It's when it's been done by a male. And they got turned on by the behavior. And that's when I talk to them. So that's when we get into the idea of submission, which is also one of those taboo topics for the idea of men to be submissive, because in our culture. Right.

That's a woman's role. Traditionally, please note all the sarcasm there. All the eye rolling. don't hurt yourself um in our culture it is more it is more accepted and expected that women are the submissive type so the idea of men being submissive and there is a real submissive component to this um and so there are times depending on where you're having this done this may be with someone you're doing privately it may be more in like a dungeon space which is not necessarily like open to the public but it's not like it's not like a house party kind of thing

um it may be that something was done to you by someone of the same gender and you got really turned on and i feel like i feel like we constantly talk about does this mean i'm gay um because we talked about this with the finger up the ass that could relate to so many episodes we've done um in a lot of these behaviors it is less about the gender of who it's less about who's doing it to you and it's about what's the being done if that makes sense it does okay cool so if you happen to be a situation where a man is doing it and you are turned on by the pain and not turned on by the man doing it then that does not change your orientation if you're turned on by the guy doing it and you're a guy then yeah there might be some things you want to explore there but it's

more in these behaviors a lot of times it's more about the what's being done rather than the who's doing it to you. So I do get a lot of men who start questioning themselves, especially if they've had a man who's been involved in the process. And you can do double ball busting, which is where there are two people who are torturing. And so sometimes that could be involved where you have two people of different genders who are torturing your balls. And so that might be like, oh, now I'm really turned on. It could be just the massive amount of submission that went into it. It could be the fact that there is multiple people involved in this process, or it could be that you got turned on by the guy well that's what i was going to say earlier if in the example where like if you

were turned on by the person doing it then there might be things you want to explore but not always because these um this type of play is so there's so many nuances to it it could purely be that you're submitting it could be about the submission to another person of the same gender not that you're attracted and sexually turned on by their gender right so there's so many nuances and again it's it's something that if you are able um to find spaces to explore it and and feel safe to do so then by all means yeah yeah and i think that's the pleasure that's the biggest challenge that i that's actually my third stop you keep checking you keep looking at my notes teacher she's cheating she's cheating um i before i get to that because you skip the middle bullet

do you want to try to go for the middle bullet to see how good you're uh no i'll let you have it thanks um there are things that you can buy um online to give you some information about this kind of thing uh sorry to give you ideas of what can be out there so even if you don't want to buy if you don't want to purchase like a chastity cage for your nuts um you could get ideas about what to do there are and i'm not pushing oh that would actually be a great person to have a guest on from so i talk a lot about kink academy and there's two reasons i do this one because i used to know the people who are involved in it so k-i-n-k academy um they have some really great how-to videos and i always tell people like if you're getting into things for the first time

whether it's needle play or fire play or bdsm please watch a video or two and not like a porn video because porn's not real um there are lots of how-to there are lots of how-to videos out there that are not through kink academy i just happen to love kink academy um because i like the people and i love them even more because they are the first reason the first time i ever got censored on youtube i had the website someone was asking this was a question where someone was like i've been with my partner for 18 million years how do we reignite the passion great question and such a common question and there was more to it in that that had led me i was i don't just send people to kink academy like oh you've been in a relationship to be like reignite your spark

go here yeah no there was more to the question than that sure um but i spell i i wrote kink academy.com like go here for and i do this in all so many of my videos like hey for more resources that's what I do I'm an educator that was the first time YouTube censored me nice so now I love to talk about kink academy even more um so if you're if you're thinking about doing this please go watch a how-to video um you can get them through kink academy I believe Adam and Eve have live videos still um you could probably find some on YouTube be careful with the jackandjilladult.com I have to check and see if they have the videos on it but they definitely i think i said maybe yeah they have and you can find the paraphernalia like you if you're like

i don't even know what you're talking about you can google maybe do it in incognito mode if you're afraid cock and ball torture and you'll see all kinds of pictures of things um chastity cages uh for the balls chastity cages for the the penis and the balls like it depends on what you're into um but get an idea of what you're into and that's one way of finding your limit without being in the space you know so you're in a space and someone's like taking out this huge studded pad you know paddle with like a nail in it and you're like I think that might be too much or maybe you're online and you're like hey I didn't know that was the thing like I might be interested in that so I would definitely advise to do your research yeah so the big thing is how the two questions I get

around this is what do I do if I think I'm into this and I'm single because how do you explore it how do I yeah how do I talk to a partner on your own um and then the other one is I think I'm into this or I know I'm into this and I have a new partner how do I bring it up um slowly so I'm going to do the second question slowly intentionally and not in the moment so I'm going to do the second part of that question first so you want to you want to be do this not in the bedroom or wherever you do your sex play it's not like you're both getting naked and you're like hey I never mentioned that I wanted you to step on my balls but can we do that that's a ton of pressure on your partner and they may have questions and they may not feel like

they can say no depending on how you're presenting it like this will really get me off that's a really hard thing to say no to um if you find videos of the things that you like to do you can send them to them send the video to your partner and be like hey I think I might want to try this or I've tried it before and I like it if you feel comfortable sharing that part of your past can you take a look at it let me know if you have any questions let me know if you're interested and if it's a no then it's a no like giving them permission to explore on their own i i have heard from people who are like i've done this before with other partners and now i'm with a new partner just kind of blurted it in the middle of sex play no surprise it didn't go

well yeah um if it is someone that you are planning on having a long-term relationship with and it is essential to you that you engage in that play i would bring it up sooner rather than later because you don't want to you know be a year or two into this relationship and now you're like i need to bring this up because i'm not fulfilled and the person's like where is this coming from yeah yeah maybe not first date material i mean it depends on you if you're like if this person depends on the vibe yeah um but do it not in a sex situation is usually my my big thing i don't know if you have any thoughts on that before i answer the other part i think that's i mean that that's the communication piece right and and as much as you don't

don't, I can't imagine that maybe delaying the conversation is there's, there's a fear of rejection and judgment. And, um, and I would argue that it's better you find that, find out about that judgment and rejection sooner rather than later. Cause then it frees each of you up to go find the people that are more, more compatible with, you know, and it doesn't even have to be. And when I say compatible, it doesn't even have to mean that the partner is the one that does it, that they have that they understand that this is something that you enjoy and you have a safe space that you can go to and you can build, you know, you can build an agreement around that. Yeah. And that's going to take a ton of communication. Yeah. You just pop. I need. Can I go off the topic for a second?

Yeah. because you just brought up something that always comes up when we talk about so we talk about sexual fantasies in my class well actually we draw them which is always hysterical because most adults can't draw i have seen some of the most interesting stick figures doing the most interesting things but one should be a coffee table book sorry for those of you want to see what a light bulb or it looks like when it goes off and gears turning simultaneously you might want to like mark this time and come back to the visual because i have them i have piles of them um so the question that we we follow up the drawings with

is should you tell your partner your sexual fantasies and this is very similar to this so i do want to tie it in and i never give answers to this it's because i can't give one rote answer and so we talk a lot about what are the benefits and what are the drawbacks so the benefits of telling your partner your fantasy is they may very well be like oh yes please let's do that yeah the drawback is that they may say oh yes please and then they suck at it like your favorite fantasy is now destroyed um there's also the fear of judgment and i feel like that is a very very strong fear when it comes to fantasies and it could be something as simple as like i want a video some people may be like that's not that simple like i want a video

us having sex or i want to leave the lights on one day or i want to do role play or you know whatever it may be there is that fear of judgment and that is a very real fear and that's why i can't give you a definite like yes or no because it depends like you said on the vibe it depends on the person um if you say that i've had a fantasy i'm trying to pick one of them sex and places is usually like outdoor on the beach in the mountains on a plane like those are usually what i get the drawings of or i think that's what the drawings are not flying to the place to have the sex it could be that too um because we do it anonymously so people don't usually clarify there was i'm not going off on that tension sorry um so if you

bring that up there's a difference between yucking someone's yum of like yeah it's not really my thing like ew and like what the fuck is wrong with you yeah you will probably never recover from the latter you may stay in that relationship for whatever reason like people stay in relationships for reasons that are their own but you will never feel safe in a relationship where if you tell them something that you're into and their response is what the fuck is wrong with you you're never going to feel safe in that relationship you might stay there i don't know if that's healthy for you someone going ew and then you'd be like no let me explain more and they go okay i get it not my thing that you can probably recover from depending on how bad the ew is so the same thing here like if

you say to someone like i'm really into cock and ball torture or i've seen this or i've heard about it on sun zipping taboos and i really want to try it your partner's like ew what the fuck is wrong with you you're disgusting you just learned a lot about your partner and they may not be the best partner for you what they may say is hey and this is what you're alluding to before Charlie like that sounds fascinating that's a you do you let's come up with some boundaries like you can do that with other people and so that gets me into see I was getting there eventually the last thing on the list what do you do if you think you might be into this in your solo because that's a weird thing to do on a on a hookup right like right well and that's on a hookup or or so that's a lot

of conversation for a hookup yeah yeah i mean depending on what you're talking i mean that's how my hookups is gone i don't want a lot of talking i don't need to know your name i am i don't need to know your dreams it's fine um there is you could check out if you're of age so if you're over 18 you could oh this is the other thing i've been censored so we're gonna to say this one out loud too screw you youtube um it's fetlife f-e-t-l-i-f-e.com and so you can get on there and you don't use your real name you create an avatar you create a persona um and they will sometimes have local munches which is like lunch with an m where people will meet in public dressed appropriately a lot of times they'll be like we are in public dress appropriately

um but it gives you a chance to either and you can just meet people that you start chatting with on FetLife where you can go to a munch and you can have a conversation with folks and see if there's people you're like I want to try these things I don't want a relationship they're probably coming at it from the same perspective so there are ways of meeting people just be careful if you're just be careful about some of the apps that are out there because I know there are some that like try to match people based on their on their kinks and sometimes those can yeah those can be a bit this can be a bit much and not really vetted not that anyone vets anyone a fat life but when you're in a public place you get a better sense of people communities that are built around this

kind of thing will often they'll tell you who to avoid because it's a community and they want to look out for people especially newbies i think that's one of the beautiful things that i have come to understand about the bdsm community is that it is it is truly a community that they look out for each other and and because i feel that they've had to combat so many um so much misinformation yeah about what they do um and and how they look out for each other and what what a session actually entails and and what practitioners um what their responsibilities are etc yeah and a lot of them with again whether they're part I keep saying there's no hard and fast rule here because it's going to be different by the practitioner and the people involved but

a lot of times you have to be sober completely and totally sober which can feel unnerving for folks who are trying to find that liquid courage to like go do these things but they want to know that you're in the right frame of mind to be able to give consent and understand what you're consenting to and making sure your needs are met and to do that you have to be sober in all definitions of those words um sober so it it can make it harder for people because they have to go in and be at least at the start of it they have to be them before they can maybe disappear into a fantasy world but but doing that sober can be a really hard step for some people yeah it can feel overwhelming and that's totally understandable because it's something that's very

vulnerable and you're you're meeting people i mean it's strangers essentially yeah um and opening up in a way so it's totally understandable yeah do you have anything else on your list i just keep wanting to come back to the consent piece um there was a a question i got a couple weeks ago it was my sister's hitting me in the nuts because she knows she can use it as power how do i get around that that is different from cock and ball torture that's abuse yeah um if you like dysfunction and it was a kid it was a kid and his younger sister and she was using it as a weapon and that that's abuse that that is physical abuse that is not what this is um if you and there's a line if you and your partner like agree that in your sex play you're going to engage in this kind

of ball busting it doesn't give them the right to hit you in the nuts during the day there are lines and it is very okay to have boundaries um what i don't want people doing is being like oh i found someone who'll like do this with me but then they also do these other things i hate but they still do this one thing um only you can make the decision how much you want to put up with and stay with but it is very okay to be like i will do this some days and not others um it can be off limits in certain situations if you don't feel up to it you that's what that communication piece is about if this is well just to piggyback on that that because you're into a specific kink doesn't mean that you're automatically into all kinks

yeah and that's where the communication piece comes in there's gonna be more if you want to be in this world you got to get ready to talk like there's gonna be a whole lot of talking you have to name the things you have to use the names you have to use the clear language but But I also find that people who have engaged in the BDSM community are so generous with people who are genuinely curious. Just even, you know, there's a certain street festival in San Francisco that happens every year the fulsome street fair that is kind of centered around a lot of around kink and bdsm and it's a very like welcoming street fair and people show up in in all sorts of dress and

you know there's a place where you can experience spanking and all so i find that the community if you are genuine in your curiosity or your desire to explore they are very generous and kind and non-judgmental with questions but if you're going in to be like a a jackass tourist and just be disrespectful and just try to be there for shock value then they'll clock that pretty fast too yeah yeah it's like we've been saying in so many of our episodes just don't be a dick yeah there's something about open carry there is something about open curiosity um and there may be people who don't want to speak on behalf of the community and you should respect that too so some people you know you may find out that like oh like i found out that the

person down the street does this i'm going to ask them all the questions they don't have to be your tour guide so respect the boundaries they're throwing up too yeah but bottom line if you are into ball busting and it is consensual and you like there's something you're not being forced into it um there's nothing wrong with you it's just something we don't talk about and hopefully in 10 years you know we'll come back to this episode and be like oh like now we're all talking about ball busting but until that day happens i we understand why you feel like there's something wrong with you but there but you're not as long as there's consent happening and i feel like i I should say that you're over the age of consent.

So sorry, young kids, but not for you. Right. Well, and we're going to have to check the 18 plus box anyway when we put this into Spotify. Very true. Very true. Yeah. Well, everyone, I want to thank you for joining us

on this episode of Unzipping Taboos. We hope that today's episode and topic sparked new thoughts, opened up some curiosities, gave you permission to give yourself room for your curiosities and, um, and maybe spark some conversations worth having. And remember that your curiosity is the key to breaking down barriers and embracing a healthier understanding of sex and relationships. If you enjoyed the show or any other show, please leave a review, share it with someone who you think might need to hear this subscribe. If you've got a question or a topic you want us to unzip, reach out to us via the link in

the episode description. A huge thanks to jackandjilladult.com for supporting Unzipping Taboos. Don't forget, I feel like this is more prescient at the end of this episode than most episodes, but don't forget that you can get 20% off your order with code unzipping20. And they do have a BDSM category that has some, yeah, that not quite videos, but they do have some FAQs, beginning bondage, some things to consider, and some toolkits. So they can also be a resource. We want to give a very special shout out to Ali O'Brien for incredible theme music. Thank you so much, Ali, best friend of the show. And until next time, keep the conversation going, keep unzipping those taboos, and everyone, take care.