Unzipping Taboos: Candid Conversations about Sex - Unzipping Kink: Consent, Curiosity, and Breaking Taboos

Episode Date: March 12, 2025

In this episode, we dive into the complex and often misunderstood world of kink, addressing the taboos, misconceptions, and societal norms that contribute to shame and stigma around sexual expression. We talk about the importance of consent as a cornerstone of any sexual encounter, emphasizing the roles of curiosity, communication, and aftercare when exploring experiences with a partner. Dr. Sue shares her perspective on the weight of the term "kink" and how it can evoke discomfort or judgment, while Charlie highlights the need for open, honest conversations to dismantle outdated cultural attitudes shaped by Puritanical views on sex. Together, they explore the challenges of finding reliable information on sexual health and kink practices, particularly in a society that often censors or avoids such topics and resources. The conversation also touches on navigating personal preferences, respecting boundaries, and encouraging self-discovery without judgment. Whether you’re curious about kink or looking to deepen your understanding of sexual communication, this episode unpacks essential ideas about consent, acceptance, and embracing your unique desires. If you have a story, thoughts and/or a topic or question for Dr. Sue and Charlie please share your ideas here:  ⁠Show suggestions If you want to ask Dr Sue a sex question for the weekly Q&A you can submit it here: Ask a question

Hi 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 here just open honest conversations so zip down and let's get candid and today our we're going to be talking about the taboo of kink um and and other things huh dr sue yes we are so uh i am here with dr sue as you all just heard um would you like to tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and your background sure so i have a phd in human sexuality education

i've been working in academia forever it feels like some days um but more importantly one of the things that i do and i think the one that's more specific to this is that i for years have been answering questions that people put anonymously on my websites and we'll have the link to that in the show description um so people submit questions and then once a week on sunday i choose one and i answer it and i post it all over social media youtubes and all over um and so i think that's kind of what led to this topic was that one of the one of the questions i get a lot of i know we were yeah so dr sue has mentioned several times that she gets um questions often um about ball busting about ball busting and and taking a look i know we were looking at some of

the analytics recently um the videos that i've done the youtube videos on ball busting not how to by the way if that's what you're thinking and about to like go check that out um it's more questions about what is it how did i you know why does this happen why do i like it and those are probably some of the videos that have had the most views and so we decided it was it was time to tackle that one but before we start having the whole conversation um we haven't done a proper introduction of you charlie oh for those of you who don't know um shame a little bit of shame for not listening to previous episodes though welcome if this is your first one uh charlie is our curious co-host who's always ready to explore the ins outs of sex relationships um and all those other

taboo topics that we as a culture never really really talk about or talk about openly charlie you want to tell us a little bit more sure uh dr sue and i have been friends for several years and we found that we had open honest conversations about a variety of topics and by virtue of dr Sue's career. A lot of them, uh, centered around sex and sex health and all the things there. Um, and I enjoy challenging, uh, societal norms and, um, you know, daylighting taboo topics. So, uh, just to get it out there and, and make it a little bit more comfortable to talk about things that traditionally make many people uncomfortable and what better taboo topic about sex then kink and all the weighted meanings for people when they hear the word kink

yeah and the interest i mean we you may find that a lot of people are clicking on this episode we have no idea why you click on this episode by the way unless you tell us in the comment section um but i'm guessing we're gonna we're gonna have quite a few people clicking on this one just because of the title not that we've come up with a title yet but we'll I'm sure we will at some point well by the time they're listening to this there will be a title so you got a little behind the scenes there folks we got to figure out what we're talking about first we never actually know where we're going so yeah and in a bit of prep during this uh for this episode there was discussion that you and I had where you know you you were kind of struggling with um

the term not not that you struggle with the word kink but like the term and the weight that goes that goes with it and um and so my argument was what better topic for a show that says unzipping taboos than this so um where would we like to begin i guess we have to start with talking about what a kink is that i think that would be a good starting point yes and why i'm not really in love with i mean i i'm not i'm not not in love with the term i feel like i need to finish that sentence and i didn't it's like you said i think you put it really well once again proving why we do this podcast together it's the weight of that word so technically if you if you're really getting into what the definition of kink is um it's going to be anything that oh here come

here come here quotes it's going to be anything that's outside of kind of the quote-unquote norm when it comes to sexual behavior. And that's my biggest issue is that so many people don't follow this kind of norm that it's it's hard for me to get my words because I don't have numbers because the research on this is not always accurate. And I have issues with the way we do a lot of research in our field. But the problem is if we have a lot of people who are engaging in this behavior, It's not outside the norm anymore. But we talk about it as if it's this taboo thing. And, you know, if you're doing this, you're on like the outskirts, you're on the fringe of civilization when really we know a lot of people are into all different sorts of kinks. and so for me it's this it's it's the the baggage that comes with the word and then it's the shame

that some people feel when anything they like might fall on that kink and so when I talk to folks especially when I do this at live events and I have private conversations with people and they're talking to me about this and you can feel the shame rolling off of them like I don't I don't know who else to tell about and I'm so embarrassed and they talk about something I'm like, yeah, I just had that same conversation yesterday with like five other people. So, right. Like, I get that you've been told that if you're not into kind of the the run of the mill missionary position was sometimes we refer to as vanilla sex, though I'm not really a fan of that term either. Right.

Because that also carries weight. Mm hmm. It's actually quite judgy. um but i just if so many people are into these all these different things at what point do we stop trying to label it as different or making it an other behavior yeah and deviant othering it yeah other yeah at one point these were deviant and some of them some of the behaviors that fall into this and i don't really want to get into the weeds on this one we're considered deviant at some point so at what point do we kind of shed that and start moving forward

that's yeah so when do we do that I'm just kidding right now with this episode because I gotta tell you I mean I know if you've listened to the show or you know me in person you have heard me bitch about censorship very very often including probably about a month ago I got censored twice within like two minutes on two different platforms yeah the thing that gets me pulled down a lot is whenever i link to a site like kink academy which teaches people how to engage in different kinks in a safe way like which is as a sexual health person that's what i want you to do i want you to be safe and and have access to that information right and and i'm i'm kind of into this but i want to do it but i don't want to hurt my partner more than they want to be

hurt so how do how do i do this safely if i link to kink academy or i link to fet life which is a place that you can go online create an identity and meet and have conversations and maybe meet offline for folks who are into again i hate to say the kink world because it's probably the person like down the street from you um but if i link to kink academy or fet life i'm like 98 sure that that post is going to get pulled down just from the fact that i'm linking people to kink academy which is a site that you can go and learn how to do these things safely because it's not like we're teaching you this anywhere else or to FetLife where you can find community so you don't feel so othered but like giving people healthy resources I'm more likely to be censored yep

yeah that's pretty that's pretty telling isn't it check out our episode on censorship um nice plug thank you um so what are some other things that that you can think of you know, as you go through, through your work and through the questions that you just really wish people had access to, I think, before I let you answer that. But one of the things that I thought was really great as we were preparing for to record was that specifically with this question about ball busting, and how often you get that question. And it would seem a huge contributing factor to that is that you have men asking this question about why do they assuming yeah assuming that it's mainly men asking about this um and that it's largely because men don't really have

kind of that social comfortability maybe that women and their circle of friends tend to have talking about all manner of things what do you think yeah and i don't i don't know how often people like to talk to friends about their sex lives but a lot of times what i've found from people is that women are more likely to share details with their female friends than men are to share details with their male friends unless it's like a a almost a body count and then i just said it because we all know how much i hate that that that phrase i know unless you're talking about how when you last did it or how often you've been doing it most of the time men are not going to have conversations about what they're doing in the bedroom with their with their friends

women may also not get i mean some people just don't like getting into detail about that with their friends but i find that women are more likely to talk about some of their the details of the experiences with their female friends so if you've got a guy who's suddenly exposed to ball busting in some way and that may have been a video they saw or it may have been done to them hopefully with their consent um or they may have heard about it or seen it in something porn usually is what comes to mind um they don't really know where to go for that information like who do you talk to about that and right i mean me well it's you know there's also that joke out there that like oh i don't want to search for

that because i don't want my search engine to um blow up or you know something along those lines or you may maybe you're partnered and it would cause some kind of strife if your partner happened upon that search history so i'm sorry i'm laughing because that happens so often in my class like Well, we'll be talking about things in class. I'm just going to do a little side thing, if that's OK for a second. Of course. Yeah. In another lifetime, I actually got to teach a class on sex and technology.

It was I mean, I love teaching my human sexuality class, but having an entire semester to talk about sex and tech was great. And we were talking about some of the websites like Seeking Arrangements, which is now Seeking.com. If you want to find a sugar mama or a sugar daddy, actually, you can do both now. It used to be you couldn't find sugar mamas on there. um where we were talking about ashley madison which we should yeah there's a whole episode right there because i know a lot of now that did the documentary about it i have a lot more people asking about that but i had a student who went home to check those out because we've been talking about them not in any kind of like i'm looking the student happened to be female she wasn't

looking for sugar daddy she was engaged she wasn't looking to cheat she was just fascinated by these websites and she shared a laptop with her partner and didn't think anything of it right because her motivations weren't her motivation was i can't wait to go home and look this stuff up that we've been talking about and and she and her i'm i'm hoping everything worked out i mean she left my class and i'm assuming that she and her fiance are married i don't know what happened there um but she was telling she told me that there was a bit of a there was a bit of a disagreement that it all that she made it sound like it all worked out but this idea that even just searching for information you know the why are you searching for that and I can see that especially with an

especially with Ashley Madison which is designed to help you cheat if you're in a committed relationship I totally understand that but it does bring up that fear of if I'm if I'm in a committed relationship sharing sharing a computer with or a laptop with my partner and they can see my search history or don't even I was gonna say or if you're in a job like don't do this at work Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I do it at work because this is part of my job. But I know that when I was, there's, I recently switched to a new institution a while ago.

I've been running around institutions and I contacted IT like the first week I was there and I'm like, hey, let me tell you what I'm about to be searching because you should know about me. But there is that fear that your search engine and your search history will be used against you somehow. think that's a valid fear right now, especially with everything going on with privacy. But so yeah, so where do you get information? Sorry, let me bring us back. And where do you go for information? Sorry, when you said that, it was just that whole story was, yeah, I hope they turned

out okay. So the problem is, if you're not, if you don't even know where to look, then you don't know where to look. Because if I don't know about kink Academy, how do I know that that's a good reliable source site to go on? It's, you know, requires me to prove I'm a certain, you know, to say that i'm a certain age not prove it um so part of it's not knowing where to go to get the information and then there's also if you do know someone so let's say you do have a great relationship with a friend or your partner and you found out about this thing there's still that fear of being judged for bringing it up so yeah so yeah the lack of information i feel like we wandered a bit sorry about that folks welcome to my brain a long day welcome to my brain i know this is

coming out at eight in the morning but we're actually recording this one at night so um that judgment piece yeah uh which i think is a big weight behind that word kink yeah and maybe even fetish um what what are your ideas on what contributes to that without getting into the history lesson and if you are a historian who is looking to who is listening to this please please let me know i i have so many questions and i would love to ask you uh but if you look at our our background as a culture we come from kind of a puritanical culture and so a lot of that purity idea has continued forward in in what we think of as normal and there are air quotes all over here folks in terms of what's normal and what's terms

of acceptable and so anything that deviates from that normal or acceptable is going to be judged harshly because we come from this background where sex is so taboo we don't even talk about it openly so if there's this thing that i'm not allowed to even talk about and now i'm engaging in this behavior that i think is different from everybody else and i'm really enjoying it there's this idea that there has to be something wrong with me because i'm straying from from the norm and so i think a lot of it is our way back when history i think a lot of it is our cultural the lack of conversation about sex in general right now that we've been talking about really for months now um i think it's just this idea that if you have sex you should be doing it

a specific way and we did an episode on this this whole idea of what is normal when it comes to sex i feel like this is like the flashback to all our other episodes but it's the cross-reference episode right but it's this it's this idea of anything that strays because if you're if you're a man you're supposed to have sex with a woman so already if you're straying from that in some way then that's you know whether it's because you're a man who likes to have sex with men or people who are gender fluid or agender or maybe you just don't enjoy sex that also makes you not acceptable quotes all over that folks um so i think it's i think it's a lot to do with kind of how our society started and i think it's the continuation the fact that we don't talk about

sex openly and so anything that deviates from from this idea of what's normal is is kind of terrifying for people and comes with shame and judgment so for our listeners and anybody happening upon our podcast and this is their first episode welcome you picked a doozy um and we're so glad you did um but that that judgment and shame or guilt or um so i mean we've been talking about about this almost from the perspective of the person that is questioning why why are they enjoying this particular sexual sex play but if you're if you're partnered or you um are with someone you're about to engage in sex play with, how, I, this is, I feel, I feel the weight of this question. How can you receive that information as neutrally as possible so that it's a safe

space, like a safe little bubble to talk about it for both of you where saying, no, I, I don't feel comfortable engaging in that is okay. And, but also saying this, I really enjoy this. So this is a deal breaker for me. And, and having that be, that's where that conversation kind of ends and you find someone that's more compatible for your sex play. I don't know. There was a question in there somewhere for what it was. How can we help our listeners lift the weight of this judgment around this word yeah so if if you're the one who's into it I know you had originally phrased it as the other way around but I wanted to both sides of this so yeah if you're the one who's who's into it bringing it up can be difficult unless you're totally like hey this is me and

you know like day one like here's my here's my my flags flying and this is one of my flags and um this is what I'm into and and maybe maybe we don't do that maybe we do maybe when you're hooking up with someone you're very clear up front this is the kind of thing i'm into if you're not it can be hard to bring up because of the fear of judgment and part of that fear is they're going to think i'm i don't want to see broken but i've heard people use that word before when they're like i don't want someone to think i'm broken or i'm damaged goods you're not you're not damaged goods this is this is something that you're into um they're going to fear that their partner is going to think that they don't enjoy sex with them like what's what's wrong with our sex life

And now we need to try X, Y, and Z. That may also lead to conversations about your sexual history that you weren't necessarily ready to have. So keep that in mind if you're going to bring it up. If you say, hey, I'm really into, let's use ball busting only because it's the thing that's come up. I'm really into ball busting. And someone goes, well, who have you done that with? so now it's like oh i have to go into my sexual history which maybe i haven't done with you yet now we have to have these conversations the conversation is not usually just a conversation about the kink it is going to be a conversation about the quality of the sex life you have with your partner um the willingness of your partner to learn about this and not be judgmental because if the partner comes down really hard on what the hell is wrong with you like ew like why are you even suggesting that that's really hard to come back from as a couple i'm not saying it can't be done but that's always going to live in the back of your head if your partner has said it to you

so i would say be prepared to explain especially if it's not something that you think they know what it is i very much like kink academy i know i keep talking about i don't get paid by them i'm not i don't work with them i don't i'm not associated with them i just think they do really good work, have something that maybe they can watch that gives them an idea of what it is. Be willing to have not just this conversation. This is going to be a multiple conversation kind of thing. So just be prepared that the person may not know what to say, that they may feel like you're questioning how happy you are in that relationship, and that there may be questions about your sexual history. But I would absolutely be prepared to answer questions. And it's also

okay to be like oh i didn't know we were going there i need to take a pause like well i regroup this is not a sit down i mean so maybe i don't want to tell people how to have conversations this but a lot of times this is not like a let's just sit down have this conversation if you know it's talking all out right yeah yeah it's it's it may be a multi-conversation conversation yeah um so for the person who's bringing it up be prepared to answer questions and and and some of those questions may feel a little bit attacking even though that's not where you're coming from you may also be surprised and that you're like yes i'm very much into that and like oh never really thought about that but if you tried this and suddenly you're like a wee

whoa whoa where'd we go like i was all prepared for this conversation if someone is bringing it up to you and it is not something you have heard of not something you have seen not something you have thought of not something you're sure you're open to which are all valid responses ask the questions and take the time. And I know we've talked about this. Hold on. We haven't referenced another episode in five minutes to the communication episode. But but it may be a it's OK to say, hold on. I didn't know we were having this conversation. I need a minute. I need to think about this. Let me you know, I don't want to say something I'm going to regret. Let me let me take a step. Let me take a breath. Let me kind of think about this. It's very easy to feel like

someone is asking you to be someone else oh well my last partner did this with me so I want to do it with you you may be hearing that they want you to be that partner when really what they're saying is I very much enjoyed the behavior and would like to do it with you but it's very easy to feel like you're being compared to someone else it's very easy to feel like this person is is not happy in their sex life and they may they may want to do more it doesn't mean they're unhappy but they may want to do more with you. But it's, it's okay for you to take a minute to say, I don't know what's happening. And I need a minute. It's also okay to say, I don't know what you're talking about. Can you explain it more? Yeah. But I think being willing to have those conversations and

being willing to be open and saying, okay, like, I might need a minute to think about this for a second um yeah i would say take time to process and um take time to acknowledge your curiosity when they bring it up or if you are thinking about bringing it up you know why if it's the first time you brought it up and it's the first time you're exploring in this type of play you know be curious about yourself and and what's what kind of intrigued you about it because you might discover some other things. And that can also help inform when you bring it up to your partner, the whys and the whats, the questions that they may have. And maybe not, you know, to your example, maybe not relating it to, oh, my previous partner did this with me,

because that can very much be received by, received with, well, so if I don't do it with you? Am I not your partner? Or something along those lines. Or am I not good enough if I don't do it with you? That can introduce maybe a lot of fear and insecurity in the stability of the relationship. But I would say the key to this for both sides is the curiosity. That being curious first, in my mind, is a great antidote to judgment. Because if you're curious, you're seeking information and you're coming up with what you are comfortable with with that information so then you come from a more honest place rather than a place of fear or anxiety or uncertainty um you know just curiosity really to me is a big antidote to judgment and fear

i feel like we're having a ted lasso moment here with the curiosity piece probably yeah here's the interesting thing about and i agree with all of that and here's the interesting thing about the curiosity is that some people may not know why they like things because i i have to tell you when people submit questions to my website i very often make assumptions about the person who's asking and i will usually put that in my answer of i'm assuming this and one of the questions that I got that still is getting a lot of views on YouTube and on other social media is this idea of what causes someone to be into ball busting. And when I first got that question, my assumption was they were asking about themselves. And then as I'm coming up with

my answer, I'm realizing this may be someone asking about their partner. You may want to know as the partner being asked to maybe possibly engage in this behavior you may your reaction may be like well why like what are you what are you getting out of this and and you have to realize the person may not know they may not know why and i'm just going to keep going back to the ball busting because i feel like i should um they may not know if it's the pain they may not know if it's a power issue they may not there may be a piece of the fact that this feels forbidden and that feels really sexy so a lot a lot of times people may not be able to identify themselves what it is about this because there is a real especially with a lot of the bdsm king bdsm world

there's a lot of power dynamic issues it's it's not always about the pain it's often about the control it's often about the power but a lot of times it's very hard for us to sit back in the moment especially if you're in the middle of it happening and going huh why is it that I like this you're just like I love this this this is great for me I'm enjoying it I don't need to dissect it yeah just just keep in mind the curiosity is great and I love that because it's this idea that it's not coming from place of judgment keep in mind that the person may not know exactly what it is about that yeah that that turns them on although that's a great place to play because And if you're like, hey, I like the idea of power dynamics.

I'm not necessarily okay with the idea of ball busting. So let's see if maybe it's a power dynamic thing because I can't quite go to that level with you, but I can play other power roles with you. But it is, it's hard. I mean, when do we ever learn to sit back and be like, oh, what about that amazing experience? And psychoanalyze ourselves. Right. When do we do, especially in the sex world? Like we're not going to look at our partner and be like, let's dissect that.

so it's I think it's important to realize that that we we want to avoid that judgment but also we may never know why the person really is enjoying what they're enjoying yeah I think that's great to point out that stay curious but know that there's not always going to be an answer there's just going to be I don't know it sounds really intriguing to me or I really enjoy it and i just do and that's an okay answer it doesn't have to go any deeper than that um i also i want to throw out that to my mind going back to the beginning of that episode when we were talking about we should talk about the definition of what we mean when we're saying kink in this episode is um communicative consensual play yes that is a big part actually that's kind of where my brain

was going to hate but also enjoy when you get in my brain like um one of the things that i really love about the kink world and bdsm and and i i sometimes separate out those but i don't to me it's all bdsm falls into the kink world if you really want to get into the semantics with me or if you're out there and you're like you're not using those words correctly send us a show idea i'll fix that in a later episode i like to talk the way humans talk and not the way academics talk And so in the real world, we tend to just use the word kink. What's great about a lot of the kink world, and this is, I think, the really big – sorry, I stopped myself there because I wasn't sure how to phrase this. So when Fifty Shades of Grey came out, there were a lot of people who suddenly had more open conversations about kink.

Great. And BDSM, fantastic. Love the fact that it opened those doors. having never read all the books or seen all the movies my understanding from folks especially those in the kink world is that it was not an accurate portrayal of what the kink world really looks like and that there is much better fiction out there but i don't have that list for you if you want that again just tell us you want that and we'll do it another episode so much of the kink world is based on consent and conversation before things happen and what i really love is that there is aftercare with most of the folks who live and play in the BDSM world.

And it's the conversation about aftercare happens before the event. So it's what do you think you will need after? Do you need food, water, to be warm, to be held, to not be held? Do you want space to talk? Do you want silence? But this idea of talking about and understanding it may change after play happens that you may have play and be like yeah I know I said I wanted all those things and I lied I want all these things now but the thought of let me think of a that there's it's important to pay

attention after I just had this conversation with a reporter about the problem with the U.S. is that we think that as soon as he comes and this is assuming a male male female sex play but as soon as he comes it's done and I'm like I don't I really wish we'd get rid of that one because she may not be done he's not off the hook just because he's come um and so the fact that we're paying attention the great thing about aftercare is this idea that we're paying attention to the fact that we're still with our partner even after this the play is over and then also thinking about how do i care for my partner and i think that i think the bdsm world has a lot to teach the vanilla again i hate the term the vanilla world about things like consent open conversation

safe word safe actions which checking in yeah checking in and aftercare yeah so i i think that there's a lot of things that that but then so here's the interesting thing if aftercare is not part of vanilla sex and you do it does now that make you in the kink world because you are doing something right like even if you're just having like run-of-the-mill missionary sex which is fine if that's what you're doing i'm not judging i'm just that's when we think of like that quote unquote normal but if you're now engaging in aftercare technically you're deviating from the norm so does that mean you're into kink just because you're you're taking care of your partner oh i know right sex philosophy

i feel like that should be the name of a book it should be if it's not okay i'm surprised it may out at me already. Yeah. Yeah. But I think there's a lot that we, I think there's a lot that the, the, the vanilla world can learn about, about all those things, the checking in before, during, after, um, safe words and safe actions. Do you want to, I feel like we should talk about that a little bit. I think we should. Yeah. So safe words, uh, in case you're not familiar, a safe word is a word that's designed to stop what's happening. And it should be a word that a person can say out loud easily like doesn't take a lot of memory clearly and is one that is very different from whatever may be happening because just saying the word stop may not i mean we should always stop

when we hear the word stop but it could be don't stop like this is great like don't stop this is fantastic um i know i've written about this for other posts and the the popularity the word pineapple because it's not something you would usually have in your sex play right um so so having a safe word that if that word is said out loud that means it doesn't mean things are stopping forever it could just mean like a stop it could mean a pause let's say pause like a timeout right and let's just kind of check in um depending on the play that you're engaging and you may not be able to speak you may have a gag or or something blocking your ability to use words and so in that case, some kind of action. Usually what we recommend is holding something in your hand

that can be dropped and that dropping is a sign that things need to stop. That does mean you have to cue into that. So it can't be just like you're dropping a pen and there's no way anyone's going to hear it in the space. You want something that's going to be loud enough or make enough of a thud noise when it hits whatever that someone can hear that. But a lot of times we say safe words and it's like, well, you can't really talk right now. So I don't know how I'm supposed to use a safe word but safe words and safe actions and I think any I think everyone not just anyone everyone whatever the appropriate term is should be working that into their sex play I don't care how vanilla your sex play is having a word or a or an action that says we need to pause for a second I'm not

comfortable is really important yes any other thoughts I'm just I I love that this is our subject because it is very much something that it is slowly um that the taboo is slowly lifting but very slowly um and that go ahead no no go ahead sorry um and that it's just it's i feel like it is something that needs more conversation and i like to use the word the term daylighting um just bringing it to the surface more because as we've talked about so many people engaged on some level of kink so many so then does that make vanilla kink that we're not doing that's in the sex philosophy book that apparently one of us is going to have to or both of us are going to have to write it yeah the problem is that as we speak right now

and and our episodes do come out a couple weeks after we record them but as we speak right now texas is in the process of trying to ban the sale of sex toys so if we can't even if we can't even sell obtain probably talk about um right now there's nothing about the speech of it but if we can't even obtain sex toys like how do we have how do we as a culture have conversations about kink how do we have conversations about this is what turns me on if if we're if we're telling people that sex toys are are perverse so i i think as a culture we may be going a little bit backwards in terms of the openness of of of what we can talk about when it comes to sex so i do think it's going to be a long time coming before we're able to have these open conversations

until the day where i can put the word fat life or kink academy in a description and not be pulled down like we're never going to really be able to have those conversations more openly when until that kind of censorship stops so i guess i'm the canary in a coal mine on that one once i get done being censored we'll know we're moving in the right direction but yeah yeah i think we have a while to go but i think there's so much we can learn and i think that the more conversations that we're having about this the more the more we'll let people know i guess if there's one thing i think we're getting to that point we're about ready to wrap it up i think if there's anything i want people to take away from this it's as long as what you're doing is consensual

i almost want to put in like not breaking laws but like if we go into the history well then that depends yeah that depends on where you live right right but like but yeah so because i usually like don't do things outside because but that's about that's about violate human rights right so so as long as what you're doing is consensual for all parties involved because when you talk about paraphilias and we talk about like flashing that you are not getting consent from the person that you're doing it to. So that to me doesn't fall into that. But my feeling is, if you are of age to make the decision to do this, and it is consensual, I would encourage you not to feel shame around it. Yeah, that's the one thing I would want people to take away from that.

I think that is beautifully put. Well done, Dr. Sue. Thanks, Charlie. Well, everyone, I want to thank you for joining us on Unzipping Taboos, candid conversations about sex. We hope today's episode sparks some new thoughts and may open up conversations worth having. Remember, as we said in this episode, your curiosity is key to breaking down barriers and embracing a healthier understanding of sex and relationships. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe, leave a review, share it with someone who might need to hear this or any other episode, leave a comment. We want to engage with you. If you have any

thoughts on what we talked about or any kind of yes ands that you want to put in there um and if you've got a question or a topic you want us to dive into or revisit and get a little bit deeper into it please feel free to reach out to us via the link in the episode description we want to give a very special shout out to ali o'brien for our incredible theme music thank you so much ali and until next time keep the conversation going keep unzipping those taboos and everyone take care © transcript Emily Beynon