Unzipping Taboos: Candid Conversations about Sex - Is Honesty the Best Policy? Truth, Trust, and Boundaries in Relationships

Episode Date: April 30, 2025

Is honesty always the best policy in relationships? In this episode of Unzipping Taboos, we unpack the gray areas of truth-telling—exploring when full transparency strengthens trust and when it might do more harm than good.We explore the nuances of disclosure, personal boundaries, and the idea that not everyone has earned the right to know certain details about your life—especially when it comes to topics like sexual orientation, past experiences, and personal choices. We also examine the difference between thoughtful honesty and brutal truth, discussing how timing, context, and emotional safety all play a role in communication.From small white lies to life-changing disclosures, honesty in relationships isn’t always black and white. We break down how navigating these tricky conversations with intention, and respect, can help you foster deeper trust without unnecessary harm.To see the question that prompted today's episode, you can read it on Substack or listen to it on YouTubeIf 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 dive into the topics of sex and sexuality that you might be curious about, but don't always feel comfortable talking about. No judgment, just open, honest conversations. So zip down and let's get candid. Today, we're going to talk about what I've kind of coined as, is honesty always the best policy? But we'll get into why and what triggered today's topic. Before we do that, I'm here with Dr. Sue. Hey, Dr. Sue. Hey, Charlie.

How you doing? I'm curious how this conversation is going to go today. So I'm excited and curious. I feel like it's going to be a scenic journey. That's a great way to put it. Would you like to tell our listeners a little bit about yourself before we get started? Sure. So I am a health educator by training, and then I have a PhD in human sexuality education.

So I really started to focus on the sex stuff when I realized kind of the basis of this whole podcast that sex was the one thing everyone really wanted to talk about, and there was no space for people to do it so I have many many many years I'm feeling my age today many many many years of experience working both in academia which is my primary but I also do a lot of work in the community and this is this is where some of the stuff about honesty and communication comes up because I also work with everyone from teenagers to folks in their 80s and the idea of communication and honesty is one that comes up across the lifespan. So I'm kind of excited we're doing this one. But before we get into this, for those of you who do and do not know

Charlie, Charlie, our Curious co-host, who is always ready to explore the ins and outs of sex, relationships, and all the taboo topics that we rarely talk about in public, but we always talk about here. Do you want to tell us a little bit more about you? sure i have been friends with dr sue for many many years we found that we had these kind of conversations just as friends almost from the outset um and as candidly as as we have them here um i am also someone who has always enjoyed challenging taboos and societal expectations especially surrounding what society expects women to do, act like, talk about, feel comfortable with. I really enjoy challenging that.

And so this was a welcome invitation to join Dr. Sue on this podcast as her co-host. It's been magical ever since. And that's the truth. And that's the end of the episode. And I feel like it was just an affirming intro. Yeah, this is really about just affirming each other. No, we have other things we need to do today, Charlie. All right.

I'm so mean. So strict. So is honesty always the best policy? Why did we want to talk about this? So we get our show ideas from a few places. One is from people who submit them through the website. And we always have the link to that in the description. Others are from people that we know in real life who either have an idea after listening to an episode or have something happen around them. And they're like, you need to do an episode on this. And then sometimes it's conversations that Charlie and I are having about the other work that I do.

So on top of community work and academia, people will submit sex questions to me through my website and we'll throw the link up to that in the description as well. And then every Sunday I choose one and I answer it and I post the answer all over the place. And so we were talking about that one. We were talking about one very specifically. I have that somewhere written down. It was can a person ever earn the right to know about your sexual orientation? Like, for example, does a bisexual woman owe that to her boyfriend? Does a gay woman owe it to her future roommates?

And then we were talking about maybe doing that. And then we started having conversations about like honesty and disclosure and boundaries. And I think that's that's how we wound up here. If I remember correctly, it was that that one that kind of set us off that that post. So, yeah, because I think this is really nuanced. And and so Charlie and I do have a little chitty chat before we we don't script the show in case you couldn't tell. We don't script the show, but we do like to have an idea of talking points. And it was interesting because we're like, ooh, that might be a rabbit hole or like, ooh, there's so many shades of gray here.

And so it is complicated. And I think that taglines like, I want to see the best policy, it doesn't actually serve humans well because it's not as simple as that. Yes. and you know and i i want to qualify this episode at the onset as well we're talking about we're talking about like those little white lies um little the the things that we do to either protect or protect ourselves protect someone um not compulsive lying yeah um so i just want to put that out there though i think someone who is a compulsive liar does not understand that what they are doing is not acceptable and that it is not little white lies and before you're all like

oh i'm honest all day i i've already told one lie since we started yeah which was how are you And if you were to ask me that again and I gave you an honest answer, it would not. I mean, I am excited and I am curious, but I'm also freaking tired. And like where I am right now, we're having a ton of weather changes and I just feel like crap. But like that could be seen as a lie. Like, but it's a social interaction. You know, you're not going to walk into every store and someone's going to be like, hi, how are you? And you're like, well, let me tell you how I am. It's all great. How are you? And you just kind of move on with your day. So the problem, I think, is and I think this is where you and I are don't want to get bogged down, is that the person who is the compulsive liar does not see what they do as any different from telling something like that little white lie. So we do get it. We do get that people will view the lying differently. We get that motivation behind the lie is important. We understand all that. We want to, I think, take it out to a bigger picture kind of look.

yeah yeah precisely and that's a great segue as well one of my thoughts was that if we're talking about this in the context of uh your partnership your relationship or um starting a potential relationship and learning it's i think it's important to have those that that talk of like here's what I expect when here's what kind of honesty means to me or what have you you know for I remember very clearly and this is something that I started doing in my late 20s when I was in a potential relationship setting the expectation of if I ask you a question that means I'm ready to hear whatever answer you give me not the answer you think I want to hear if I'm not asking, I don't want to know. So having those types of baseline conversations

can be helpful to understand where people's, what shades of gray people operate in. See, but even in the, and I get it, and this is why you're different from most people, because like, even that can be really difficult. I have seen this in relationships and some of the relationship I've been in like I will ask someone that I'm dating before we go somewhere like how do I look in this and oftentimes they're just cued to be like you look great like there's no thought it's just like you look wonderful you look great you know whatever when really it doesn't and I was asking because I did I legitimately wanted to know but I think a lot of I think for a lot of people they don't realize that they may not be ready for the truth they may want the validation

so like how do I look in this oh I look great are they prettier than me absolutely not like we we have these kind of conditioned responses and so there are people who are like yes I want the honest answer to something as innocuous as how do I look in this but really they're not they don't want that kind of honesty and so we have to keep in mind that when we're having conversations with potential partners or friends or family that they're bringing all of those experiences and with them where it's like i was told i should be honest and then i was honest and i kind of got verbally bitch smacked in the process and so i'm never going to be honest again um right which is why those those talks are important especially at the onset

so that you can understand that kind of um baggage i don't mean that pejoratively or insultingly to anyone because we all have it we've all lived a life up until the point that we're all here together and ideally we'll live beyond this episode um so so that's why it's so important because there is a lot the conversation in that example isn't if i'm asking you a question i that means i'm ready to hear the answer there's a lot more that goes around but that's how it's introduced right um is and then understanding well i had a partner who would ask me how they looked and they expected me to always say, well, if I already feel good in what I would in what I'm wearing, then the question might be, do you like it instead of how do I look? You know, being

and offering and building that trust that I'm going to ask more specific questions than those conditioned questions and conditioned responses that we've all learned that are all the punchline of many many jokes about dating and relationships right but i think that takes a a level of self awareness sure that most many hum most humans humanity the humanity has and i think it takes a level of vulnerability that people aren't really taught how to kind of work their way through so we do get it like we get that this is complicated it's not and that's why i hate the tagline of like honesty is the best policy honesty it's not i don't i guess i just gave my answer it's it's not as simple as a tagline i think is really what i want to say like

most most things are more complicated than that they are and there are reasons to even with someone that you are highly vulnerable with there could be things about their day where maybe you got some news about something in your related to your family or your job but then they also had this heavy heavy day so being honest right when the things happen that's not really the time because there's also this need for a type of reaction and support that you have if you're communicating your truth. And if you're communicating it to somebody that has had a day or is under a lot of stress or has all these external factors that you don't know about or have some idea about, you are less likely to get the response you're hoping for or the support

you're hoping for sorry I'm having a having a moment in my own head which I'm not going to share um which is a perfect example of like the honesty factor and that wasn't done intentionally like you were telling a story that was very similar to something I had been through in the in the way back past um and so I think I think I want to go to the wording of the question if we can um yeah let's get into that question because i think that that was a complicated one um and i know it kind of kicked off and i know that that didn't seem like it was about honesty like now that i'm re-looking at the words the word honest is not in there um and yet for we both have that reaction of is this an honesty issue or like is this a boundary issue and for folks who are

interested i think i did this post a couple years ago actually so maybe we can include in the description a link to the actual post um so the question again was can a person let me just do the first part can a person ever earn and they did put the word earn in quotes can a person ever earn the right to know about your sexual orientation and i i feel like with sex educators and there is never really a topic that all sex educators agree on but i feel like i feel like the response to sex educators would be like you should be honest with your partner about like who you are and potential risk because even though and i know i've bitched about this before like so much of sex education is about death disease and dysfunction so i could see where someone's going to the

well if you are sleeping with people of different genders that might increase my sti risk and i'm like then in that case you should ask about sti risk you shouldn't like you shouldn't be asking about orientation because orientation and and behavior do not always match um like there's so many layers for me but i like i always try to put on like the what might other sex educators say and i probably are pissing off some sex educators which is fine um we've had our fights in the past that's your comfort space um you know i could see where that would be like uh well you deserve you know they deserve to know you and i'm like but they don't so for me can a person ever earn the right to know about your sexual orientation for me it's not about earning because that sounds like

there are like there's like a checklist yeah or like right okay they they cross this line so now it's okay but for me it's about it's about a boundary of how do you feel like you want to share that because you have the right to protect personal information if you are doing something that is putting someone at risk of a potential sti then i do think that person has the right to know that they're at risk but that's a very different question from does someone have the right to know about your sexual orientation and so the second part was like for example does a bisexual woman owe that to her boyfriend and for me again let me own this for me that's about how comfortable are you sharing that if you're first starting dating and you don't know how they feel

about folks who aren't straight that might be risky right and there could be the threat of violence there could be the threat of rejection there could be and and you were talking about this when we were kind of prepping about this this idea of like oh if i know you've had sex with someone of the same gender there's the oh sweet so you're into like threesomes and i can expect that in my future and so i i i think it's really important to keep in mind that people have the right to keep their secrets as long as they are not harming others in that process and if I am protecting something like my orientation that is my right to protect as long as what I'm doing does not put the other person at risk somehow yeah yes I think also it's important to know

it's it's important to call out again that we're talking about this question in regard to allowing someone to know about your sexual orientation, because there's a part where you talked about STI risk. And this, this could be just completely off the cuff. But there are laws that if you know you have something, and you don't disclose it, and you expose somebody there, there are laws in certain states that hold you liable for that. So I just feel like that was important to note. But let's get back to our topic. but that's that's the thing as well it's in it's not even just romantic partnerships that you know you could have family members who feel entitled to know and and then you may have processed it

with other people before sharing with your family members and your family members may feel a certain type of way or that you deceive them for a long time or kept them in the dark when it was really you were just processing and finding your words. So that's another layer to to that honesty. And when you are ready to be honest, and you know, when people come out, they say, I'm ready to live my truth. And that's, I think that's what contributes to it is that they can, they don't have to have that wall up anymore. Yes. And, and especially in the beginning, when I I'm going to go back to I might not know how you react, especially with what's happening today. It's in today's world.

I might fear for my safety if I tell you anything other than if I'm a woman dating a man, which is what this example was, and I tell you I'm anything other than straight. I don't know how you're going to react. I don't know who you're going to share that with. Right now, as they're trying to roll back protections of folks based off things like orientation and gender, that can feel really threatening. The other thing is you might not know what your sexual orientation is. For some people, their sexual orientation isn't fixed. I mean, I am old enough. Back in the day, you know, when we were learning about sexual orientation, it was like gay, straight, or bi.

And now it's like asexual and pansexual and demisexual and graysexual and aromantic and asexual. Like, there's so many things out there that if I don't know what those are, or I'm still trying to understand how I feel about my orientation and who I'm attracted to, like, I might not always have the answers. And for me, and we have had discussions like this in my class before, and students, it's so funny because they have, like, that initial reaction of, like, you have to tell someone everything. And then you'll have, like, two people who are like, no, I don't. And then when we start having those conversations about, like, what does it mean, you know, does a potential partner need to know who else they might be attracted to? Is that really their business or do they just need to know what's going to impact us? And I know I've said this before, like coming back to how this might impact a potential partner. But people's understanding of who they're attracted to does change.

For some of them, that does change over time. And you might not know where you are in terms of your orientation. And so to have to tell your partner that. While you're finding your language around it and what resonates with you and what's comfortable. Right. And for people who come from a religious background where they were taught that that might be a sin. Like now I have to be like, huh, am I a sinner? Am I a bad person?

Like my orientation doesn't match what I was told my whole life. Like there's so many other things where you're living. And this kind of gets into the last question about roommates. But there's so many things that may be impacting your sense of safety or your sense of identity or trying to figure out who you are that I don't think that that needs to come out before you're ready. now if you have told your partner you are monogamous and you are exploring your orientation by having sex play with other folks then that's an issue like that's that's deceptive that is deceptive that is that is that to me is a very different thing because that is impacting the relationship and you are lying by saying you're monogamous um so i do want to put those kind of lines in there but yeah i want to yes and that as well because and it just really goes back to

having the conversations together to find out okay when I say this what what do you hear and what like what do you expect from me um you know you could be you could be dating several people and then honing kind of honing into one and but still kind of talking to the others and if this one person feels like you're you're monogamous or that you are close to it are they going to feel comfortable with those conversations that you're you know it's just understanding understanding what the understanding is across the contract the like the social contract because that's what it is yeah and that can be really confusing for folks and it's funny because now i'm starting to get into i know we talked about cheating on another episode

but like i've had students who um who will find out their partner still has a dating app and be like well you didn't tell me about that so you're cheating and the partner's like i haven't been on the app since we met but it's on your phone and so there's this assumption of cheating there's an assumption of behavior that went with this one random fact they found um and so you know did that person need to disclose they still have the app you know is is that cheating was that a boundary was that was that really an act of like i forgot i had it because it's in a full you know i don't some people use folders with their apps instead of having it be a mad landscape like mine um but like it's it's interesting because then we get

into the is this deception is this is this lying is this a boundary am i trying to protect myself am i afraid of violence if i tell you something like there's so many things that can make this super complicated yeah come on to the last part of that question because i think that's yeah does a gay woman owe it to her future roommate to tell them about their sexual orientation what do you got no i don't like to look on your face no so had you asked me this 10 years ago it would have been like same thing like no you know if

i'm gonna walk again and find you having sex with anyone then like in a common living space then i finally feel like we should have conversations about boundaries and what i know and what i don't know um but it's funny because i was i'm totally changing my answer from this from when we chit before the show um because having lived in the south in the very southy south um i could see where people might find out their roommate is gay and feel like they're living with a sinner and that by attachment they are now a sinner and now it is like my had they known that this person did not agree with their morals and values they would never have agreed to live with them i i still don't think you owe it to a roommate like there's a lot when i had roommates there's

a lot of shit i never told them that had nothing to do with them but i can see having lived in the south how that might piss people off if they found out well that's a different question yeah is it gonna piss them off is different than do they are they entitled to know about my orientation yeah yeah i mean i'm still gonna stick with no but i think i can understand where that i can understand yes i can understand the fear based on what uh social conditioning you know environment that you grew up in sure that doesn't make you entitled to my life yeah if I pay my rent on time if I'm respectful of the space if I keep my space clean if I am not putting the home and our belongings and you in danger people can't see that when you do that gesture they don't have

we don't have video well that's why i said something thank you maybe it was a dramatic pause yes thanks for that just ruin your moment yeah so i i also would hope that if you have any like if you put a roommate ad out that there are some and this can be tricky now too because of our digital world if you say no thank you you know you or code the coded ways that you could say highly highly religious household or something like that um but again if if i am lesbian bi and i find a roommate who one is against it not knowing any of this i don't think that i'm putting them any more at risk than if i am straight dating dating a man who

becomes violent obsessive stalk like that to me is being a straight woman is more dangerous well in choice of partner i mean well yeah one could argue that being gay lesbian in this country brings with it an implicit threat of violence right now but yes yes not usually from your partner thank you for that clarification yeah that's i'm glad you know what i meant yeah yeah but i want to get off the sexual orientation thing if that's okay for a bit yes absolutely because i was thinking about other things and like other reasons why people may hide things from partners that where I could see where the partner would feel like there was a violation of trust I could also understand why the person was doing it and one of the things maybe with

fantasies and kinks and and or and or I should say because sometimes the fantasy is a kink because one of the things that we talk about in my class a lot is like should you tell your partner your fantasies should we tell our partners our fantasies let's get your opinion before I move on I think it depends on it depends on where you are in your relationship what kind of partner you know how you met can determine how up front you are about those things um so I think it just it really depends it it is situational on how quickly and up front you are with those fantasies it could be after a couple of dates after a couple of times you've had sex play and you can you can feel a vibe off the person that they're open and accepting and so you can have the conversation

and they can say no I can't be that for you but if you want me to watch or you know whatever I think it just it depends yeah yeah well and it's interesting because my students again don't they don't like shades of gray there's there's students they like yes or no answers that they can well that's how you pass or fail right not my class um and so those are the conversations we have like it like there is real risk for telling some a partner i'm not gonna say a potential partner because usually it's not in that potential stage that fantasies are coming up or interests that may be seen as kink or or just not kind of common um there is the potential for judgment there is the potential for rejection there is the potential for the person to feel like i'm not good enough

which it really isn't about the person you know if you're saying hey like i'm i've always wanted to try this or hey like this kind of thing gets me off and we don't do it it's not you're not saying you suck and you're not meeting my needs it really is like an invitation to like hey let's try something more but a lot of times the person can take it as you saying i'm not good enough or i'm not i'm not meeting your needs and um i i think it really does depend on what it is that you're into because and what your fantasies are like if you're fantasizing about your your partner's best friend no no that is not something that is not something we tell them because and and I'll use that example and people be like wait they're not being honest then I'm like what is achieved

by that honesty and that's the ultimate question like work backwards from there you know like if you're if you're fantasizing about someone else because it helps you get you off but you never would actually act on it then why is why is this something that i owe the part like why do they need to know what's going through my head during sex play like they're you know are they even a title to that um so i think that's just something i want like we need to keep in mind that there's there could be a real fear of like the other person feeling upset or like they're being questioned or challenged there could be fear of rejection there could be fear of judgment um i've had when i've worked with adults in other situations where they'll be like

i told my partner i thought i might want to try this i saw it in porn i thought it was interesting i told them i wanted to try it and we haven't had sex since because they were like disgusted by what i had said and between you and i and all the people listening i it wasn't like it was like this horrible like i can't even think of something i would you know illegal we'll see even illegal now is an interesting term. I don't think it's anything where most of us would be like, oh, my God, you want to do what? I think it was something that not that most people actually might be interested in trying. And the partner literally shut down and pulled away. And I don't know what happened to them because I don't often see people after that one time that we do a live

event. So there are real fears of of being completely open and honest. And you have to imagine so let's let's assume this person the relationship ended because of this they're not going to tell their next partner that part of them because they have already learned that they will lose the relationship from it and that's where I think it's really important to keep in mind that it's not just about you it's about your partner or partners and what they might be bringing now there's no way you can know that you know if I said hey Charlie I want to talk about baby cheetahs today and you've seen a video where baby cheetahs were being horribly abused and now you're ridiculously upset like there's no way i i want a baby cheetah by the way in case you want there's

like the cincinnati zoo has baby cheetahs and i've been watching the video just in case anyone's like what the hell is going on with dr c today um i have no way of knowing that you just saw that very upsetting video and so now i've triggered you like but but me saying something about baby cheetahs is not something where I should expect you to have this reaction so but me saying you know hey to a partner like hey like your friend's really hot and I really want you to know that I think about them while we're together like I've got to know that's not going to be taken well and that's that's part of the problem with communication is that I may have my intent I may know what my what I'm trying to do I may be saying it because it's the truth

but i also have to keep in mind how that person's going to internalize it and what they may or may not be bringing to the table and and again and the burden it places on them right and again you can't always know that like there's no way i could know you'd be upset by baby cheetahs but my partner might be really upset i should expect my partner to probably be upset if i'm like hey your friend's hot and i'm thinking about them so i think there's there's something to be said there about kind of thinking about the outcome why are you telling them the truth what are you thinking might happen and also recognizing there may be stuff coming to the table from their side that you don't recognize or didn't know existed yes yes really all that and i get yes

yes thanks yeah well those are the those are i think more honesty please you did great but that's the thing when you're when you're talking about honesty is the best policy or or is it in in many cases there there we all kind of go through that quick social calculus when we're in these situations am i gonna harm them unless or we hope people are i'll say that um am I going to harm them unnecessarily by by this honesty like I always tell the truth I believe in always telling the truth well again if it's something that is just gonna hurt them even if your intention you're well intentioned by saying hey here's this truth

and it hurts them not just their feelings because there's harm and then you could lie to protect or withhold information to protect somebody's feelings or you could be telling bits of the truth so sort of lying by omission as you're navigating the situation and and watching them receive the information and then there are times where you just want to avoid conflict i hope that's not a long-term strategy but but it's just true you could you could be at work here's the thing you could be at work and you don't agree with something that they're doing but you need a paycheck and you need your benefits so you just get on the phone with your boss and they say how's everything going and you say it's

great it's wonderful I'm so happy to be working here yes I'm so lucky you might not go that far but so what I had been trying to set you up for which you didn't take you didn't you didn't take the segue because maybe it wasn't so clear what we had been talking about in the chitty chat before was the people who are like I just tell the truth all the time and that's who I am I was trying to I was trying to help you get to that because I know we wanted to talk about it and I couldn't figure out a way to segue well so when we were having our little as dr sue has coined the term chitty chat and a little chitty chat that's our t-shirt for the day yeah our little pre-show chitty chats uh what came to mind for me for movie fans out there um is the glass onion and there's

a character in there who you who spits out the line i just tell it like it is and i loved the response because i hate that i just tell it like it is he just tells it like it is it's to me a cop out on many on many levels but character spits out that line and um benoit blanc daniel craig's character immediately retorts it's a dangerous thing to mistake speaking without thought for speaking the truth and i just that was the most perfect response to i'm just brutally honest or because in my opinion people who say i'm just brutally honest well you're putting the word brutal in front of honesty so you know on some level you know that what you're saying is just you not giving a shit about your audience and how they're going to receive it. You're putting the

burden on them instead of navigating people with you. Because the thing about honesty is that it's building trust. And part of building trust is your audience, your partner, whoever that you're trying to build that trust with begins to trust that you can understand their feelings and that you're perceptive about their day and their environment and things that impact them throughout the day. That's part of building trust, too, is are you noticing them? And if you're being, air quote, brutally honest, you're not noticing. You're just going in like a wrecking ball into somebody's day. Well, the other thing about communication is that we don't we're not robots. We are responsible for understanding how things might land.

And again, going back to like the whole example with the baby cheetah. I'm really just going to have to look at some baby cheetahs after this. The whole example of baby cheetah that I didn't know that that might trigger you. It's the idea of like I am partially responsible for how what I'm introducing to the conversation and how I'm introducing it and the tone that I'm using. and i i am responsible for that because it is a give and take it is not just my world and you're living in it and i get to say whatever i damn well please it is about what you said about building a relationship and building trust um the other thing that i find with people who do this and i've over i've heard it's funny because um there's another term and it just i didn't write it down even

though i have a pen in my hand it was it wasn't that they use the term brutal honesty it's total honesty um they'll use the term I'm just totally I'm being totally honest and because I don't you know I don't believe in shades of gray or I don't believe whatever it is what I have found when I have had to be around people who are like I just tell the whole truth nothing but the truth all the time they cannot receive it so because I was I was I was in a meeting of sorts of sorts meeting with someone who did that and I was like okay so let me be totally honest with you what you just said was incredibly harmful to some of the folks who were sitting in the room you have destroyed any sense of trust and any sense of community and I do not see how we will

be able to we have like things we had to get done I don't see how we'll be able to get things done now because of your decision and they shut down and you know well that's not a nice thing to say And I'm like, I was just being totally honest. Yeah, I wish people could have seen your face there. I was just being totally honest. So what I find with folks who do that is that they think that they're being unique. There was a character in a TV show, I want to say it was, I want to say I'll never remember what it was, who that was their thing, that they would say things that were totally honest.

But what I find with a lot of those folks is they can't take the total honesty, especially when it's about their behavior. you know okay great you were totally honest let me explain what your total honesty just did to destroy the sense of cohesion that we were trying to create here and our ability to complete a task or a goal so yeah yeah there is one more thing i just want to mention i don't know where we are in time because we never keep time um it has it i'm trying to think of segues and those apparently are not happening for me today um so may i change the subject yes because consent is a thing um the thing i want to talk about is also that people may not be ready to talk about things

and i i'm thinking about this specifically with sexual trauma and history of violence so for some folks who are victims or survivors of sexual assault or rape or harassment um one i'm sorry and please get help to help you kind of move through that process and support it and um but they may not be ready to talk about it they may still be at a point where they're like i'm going to deny this because that is how i can function right now this happened but i'm not ready to talk about it i'm not ready to think about the impact i'm not ready to kind of dissect it and do the verbal autopsy of it which i guess most humans call processing those of you who know me know verbal autopsy is good if you're trying to hit your word count for

the day yeah well i also i'm not those those who've worked with me before know that i'm not really a fan like whenever we do processing i'm like that's your job um because i use terms like verbal autopsy um but they may not be in a place where they're ready to even admit it to themselves what happened or the scope of what happened or the impact of what happened and so when they finally you know they may be working through therapy on their own they may be and hopefully they are getting resources to help them kind of move through this process they may get to a point where it's been months days years even decades where they're finally ready to think about what happened you can tell i've worked with survivors who've kind of gone through this

and they suddenly bring it up to a partner a long-term partner and they're like hey i need to talk to you about this thing that happened to me because i'm finally ready to talk about it and the partner had no idea it was in their history and one of the you know a lot of partners are like overwhelmed which is a legitimate reaction like this is someone i love and i care about and they're telling you about this horrible thing they went through and for some folks who hearing it there's this sense of well why didn't you tell me like why weren't you honest like why were you hiding it and I always find that really interesting because that makes the story about them instead of about their partner so so I do want to say I because I feel like we're going to

get to that point where you're going to be like what are your final thoughts that you haven't done that to me in a while you've traumatized me enough that I'm always like ready for those final thoughts to come up now you're braced i am here we go um i think that there's a difference between honesty and boundaries i think that people are entitled to keep things to themselves if it is not and and i know we said this at the top of the show if it's not going to potentially cause harm to the other person i do think that's one i do think that's for me one of those places where like we have to really rethink is this mind to own if it can hurt someone else and what and when you say hurt someone else what do you mean like putting them at health risk

harm physical harm emotional harm like yes we're monogamous i'm also screwing a couple other people but we're monogamous like that's going to cause emotional harm and it could cause physical harm if there's stis involved yeah um so i think emotional i think anything that may see i want to say destroy trust, but again, that example of working with folks who are survivors of sexual abuse and assault and rape, there are those people who feel like they were lied to and that destroyed a sense of trust, even though it has nothing to do with them. I feel like I'm now talking in a circle. So let me see if I can get back to like a straight path here. I do think though, there's a difference between being honest and having your own boundaries. And I think that's

something you need to navigate with your relationships based off the the type of relationship it is like if it's a one-night stand you don't like what do you really owe that person sure um and then what other than sti risk right or pregnancy prevention risk if that you know that's something that needs to be addressed um you you need to kind of decide how you want to navigate it based off how long the relationship exists who the relationship is with i i don't necessarily think that we need to tell our partners the same thing we would tell our roommates or our friends or even our family like there are people who keep very deep dark secrets from family because they don't feel the need to tell them um and i i do think we need to think about when we

are being honest more on that other side like that brutal honesty or that total honesty perspective the the why like why why are we doing this like why are we saying these things and how might it land. I think that as, as humans, we're living in a culture where we have to interact with others. We have that responsibility to take five seconds and think about how this might come across. Yes, absolutely. I think the other thing is, I think in that question, uh, the word, there was the word entitled. Hold on, hold, please. Um, it was earn and it was in quotes. OK, so the earning and I just keep going back to people who hear something when someone is being vulnerable and honest and working to build those that foundation of trust or maintain that trust or what have you, is this feeling of entitlement to unfiltered facts about another person.

and going inward to feel like why do you why do you feel entitled to that information and so if you are someone who feels entitled figure out why and then come up with very like specific questions in my opinion not so much of these so have you ever been with women have you ever been with someone of the same sex have you ever like try to drill down to why you want to know that is it because you have a fantasy and you're navigating your fantasy and and seeing if they have a threshold to navigate that with you or are you just being nosy and would you want someone coming to you with that kind of question or entitlement about certain facts in your life yeah it's funny because you keep

using the word entitlement and i almost want to put in ownership like do you feel like you have the right to own that part of that person and yeah i don't think you do i think that as humans we have the right to keep some things to ourselves yes i agree i agree um and then just and we're not saying i think what we're saying at least i'm saying is that honesty in relationships is nuanced and leveled and there are those shades of gray and when you are starting a relationship you are discovering a person and so creating the space if you want that kind of access to the person you need to foster a space that makes it feel safe for them to open up more like a flower or an onion i don't know layers those are very my shrek well not everybody feels flowers are

the right thing so i want it to be inclusive but it's about fostering that space yeah if you if you want your partner or if you even if you want to be able to share things with someone that you haven't shared in previous relationships it's about actively being aware of the space that you two are creating together for that level of openness because the trust piece I think it's it can almost be a chicken egg situation but I think they go concurrently building trust will foster the honesty that you might be seeking and building trust is not just about always telling the truth it's about nurturing and and understanding the person the other person in the room as well as yourself and the energies you bring to to it to the situations so it's

nuanced and all those words to say it's nuanced i was gonna say and the problem is that does not fit into a slogan as cutesy as honesty is the best policy yeah and and that's that's what makes it difficult is that it is in a world where people have a very short attention span and in a world where people just want a quick thing that they can repeat and a world where people just want to know the right answer and not put a ton of effort into things honesty is the best policy sounds a whole lot easier than the whole explanation you gave and i think it needed all those words because even just saying it's nuanced is is not enough and so I think that's, that's part of the issue. Yeah. It's gotta be, if you say something,

your actions also back up what you say. It is again, that space where someone had a really bad day and instead of attacking them with your honest opinion about how they came into the room, instead of doing that, you're fostering a space of like making room for them to decompress from a tough day and nurturing and supporting them and all of those things yeah and i think it's i see i was i know we were getting ready to wrap up but you said something really important there that we may have to revisit somewhere else unless i can do it right now the idea that the actions have to match the words if i tell you that i expect honesty and i will there's an assumption there that i will support you in that honesty and not judge you for that honesty and so if i say

that you know so if i say that to a partner and a partner discloses something to me and i'm like Well, that's horrible. And I can't believe you would do or say something like that. I have just demonstrated to you that I do not actually support you being honest. And so there's that idea that that the actions have got to match the words that you're saying. yeah yep all right well everyone we hope you enjoyed that conversation um thank you for joining us today on unzipping taboos we hope it sparked new thoughts and may open up conversations worth having 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 please subscribe leave a review and share it with someone who might need to hear this. If you've got a question or a topic you want us to dive into, reach out to us via the link in the episode description, leave a comment,

your thoughts on what we discussed today. Um, we, we are here for it. We want to give a special shout out to Allie O'Brien for incredible theme music. Thank you so much, Allie. And until next time, keep the conversation going, keep unzipping those taboos and everyone take care. © transcript Emily Beynon