PS043 - Exploring Choices, Enjoying Community, Embracing Consent

May 21

Written By

Will you go out into the world and see kink around the globe?

...or will you build a deeply kinky world at home?

Episode: https://shows.acast.com/660e243b2f834f0017de9181/episodes/660e2440acbcaf00174d9934

In this month's podcast, we look at the notions of choice, community, and consent. Will you create your own erotic world, or go see the erotic world? This is the start of the discussion as Lee takes us on a journey through kink exploring worldwide and the debates about which communities we dive into and support. Between the notion of the “Enthusiastic Yes” and putting your passion where your ethics are, let’s look at desire and crossed boundaries alike, fun stories and hard questions, and finding our own place along the adventure.

Dan:

BDSM and Non-Standard Relationships, Power Exchange and Polyamory, Sacred Sexuality and Fetishes, as well as Simply Fun Kink.

You're listening to The Erotic Awakening Podcast Network.

[music intro]
Announcer:

Welcome to The Passion And Soul Podcast, an exploration of personal and interpersonal desire, faith and connection.

Your host, international sexuality and spirituality author and educator, Lee Harrington of passionandsoul.com, will take you on a sultry and intellectual journey through the soul of intimate experience.

Take a moment and breathe deep and get ready for an adventure.

This podcast is a chance to glimpse into the ever-increasing diverse world of alternative life.

The Passion And Soul Podcast is intended for mature audiences.

If you are offended by adult topics or prohibited by law, we recommend you stop listening right now.

Lee:
Hello, fellow adventurers of sexuality and spirit, and welcome to The Passion And Soul Podcast, Lee Harrington.

Last month marked new beginnings and new chapters for this podcast, because we moved from being a segment on The Erotic Awakening Show to becoming a podcast in our own right, and I am so excited by how this has been turning out.

It's been an amazing transformation, as I've seen folks subscribe to us over at iTunes or sign up for the RSS feed.

So I want everyone who's tuning in for the first time or connecting through The Erotic Awakening Podcast to feel free to type Lee Harrington into iTunes or the Internet at large, to find not just the podcast subscription, but my information in general and to follow along with the podcasts to come.

As part of moving forward, I want to talk this month about placing roots and how we go about that process as sexual explorers about figuring out whether we're going to go out and try absolutely everything under the sun and have gigantic adventures all over the globe as compared to staying home and really diving in deep.

And this is coming from the fact that JD, who some of you might know as Being tooknottyboys.com, which is twoknottyboys.com, he and Dana Ramah have been part of the kink community for a really long time.

And though Two Knotty Boys are no longer traveling as a pair, they have amazing resources and great books out there on the Internet.

And I'll post to some of them on on message notes for on the podcast notes.

But I have followed JD on Facebook, because he posts really great images of different knots that he's tying, of different creative things.

And he's also a pretty amazing philosopher.

He did an essay for me in Rope, Bondage and Power, talking about the notion of of of Zen and how it applies like that philosophy notion and how it applies to being in rope.

But he posted today a piece that said, suddenly struck by the examination of a passionate life lived in one place versus a well traveled life spent on one's feet, create a world or see the world.

This thought's going to linger, I can feel it.

So as I read this, I it really hit home for me.

For people who have been following my work for a while, I've been in the sexual explorer communities for 17 years now, which is kind of boggling to me at times.

And during that time, I've traveled a lot.

I've gone out and I've been a slut.

I've gone out and taught classes.

I've gone out and seen and met so many people to the point that when somebody asked me recently, have you really met all 5,000 people on your Facebook page?

I realized I'd met at least 3,000 of them.

And if I dug through the pages, because I had them sorted in different ways, that I can place at least context, if not the actual conversations I've had with most of these folks, which is kind of intense for me, at least, to look at this exposure I've had over the years and the people I keep on meeting and these blessings that have happened.

That since starting teaching, I've had a chance to travel and teach in 36 states, six different countries, done over 650 classes, and along the way had the opportunity to see all of these different types and ways of being a sexual explorer, of getting to see the world.

Not only seeing the world as in getting to see really cool monuments and getting to taste Chinese food in eight or nine different countries, but I'm talking about the different ways that people explore sexuality and sensuality and intimate connection, whether we call it kink or swinging, whether we're looking into the differences between BDSM and exhibitionism, fetishism, really looking into and feeling on my skin that sacred connection, whether dancing in groves or ankles up in the air in a sling, that I have been blessed by all of these crazy adventures.

But here I am, right now, in a place where I just got to paint the porch on the house that I'm living in, that having moved in with my partner a little over six months ago, we made the decision to finally break down my moving boxes, because we've decided I'm staying.

That right now, I have an organized attic and I've cleaned out my garage, and that we've created a space together, which includes diving into our sexual exploration as two people, really examining who we want to be and how we want to explore, not just taking a bite here and there from the amazing buffet of life.

Now don't get me wrong, right?

This decision is not being easy, like it's really not, like I'm really torn and she's really torn, like we don't know where to put our feet, because are we going to go out and see the world?

For a while, I was traveling three to four weekends a month talking about sex, kink, culture, spirit, connection, passion, and that's not counting the two years that I traveled internationally spreading information and desire wherever I went, because I put all of my stuff in storage and just went on the road.

I would make the decision that was like, okay, I want to make it to Australia.

Let's go teach in California for a while, raise enough money to be able to get to Hawaii, raise enough money to be able to fly down to Sydney, work my ass off for two months, travel back, spend time in Seattle like it was just go, go, go.

And I loved it because not only did I get to teach and connect with people and do the whole, like that whole side of things, but I got to be a slut.

I got to put my ankles up in the air.

I got to get down on my knees.

Rope was flying around people's bodies.

Whips stung across the back of my body.

My back ached as hands ran down.

I got to bear witness to people doing profound acts of connection, people crying out their heart and souls.

I got to watch as one at a time people opened up their eyes.

I remember being there when an extreme scene was happening, a man being singletailed by his owner.

Two men engaged in a point of passion were growling and crying and rage were filling up the room.

And I was sitting next to three people whose eyes were wide.

And they were blinking and they were scared, I realized.

And here we were in Hawaii at an event that was billed to have a hundred and a hundred plus people at it.

It's called Spirit of the Islands.

That's what it was.

But instead, we'd had 15 people, including the presenters, right?

Like, I think we might have had as many, if not more, presenters than we had attendees.

And so we divided the, the present, the producer invited people from the conference center.

We were at this beautiful resort space on the big island, invited them to come into the dungeon if they wanted to.

And these three kids, and by kids I mean somewhere between 19 and 25 years old.

These three passionate individuals, curious, used to exploring, maybe tantra, used to exploring sensually, but who had never seen this kind of work before, this kind of diving in, this kind of body embracing, shaking, crying.

Here they are, watching something so intense.

And I look over and I say, hey, is this your first time seeing this kind of stuff?

I said, well, this is kind of intense stuff, isn't it?

And I said, you know, this isn't the only thing that happens at events like this.

There's a really small number of people in attendance at this event, including some people who've been doing these things for a really long time, including those two guys over there.

And they were like, oh.

And I'm like, a lot of people who are exploring kink like to get spanked, or like to have sensual massage, or like dressing up in fantastic outfits.

And they were like, oh.

And I'm like, yeah, it's not all giant heavy whips and chains, and fear, and pain, and that pain you're seeing isn't, it's not about harm.

That pain you're seeing is a really intense sensation to take someone on a journey.

Just like if you're running and running and running and running in that marathon, it's not about the pain in your legs.

It's about going on something intense and seeing yourself all the way through.

And I wouldn't have been able to be on that journey to get to meet those people, to be able to have them touch me so deeply if I hadn't been on the road.

And yet, here I am in a new home, in a home that's new to me.

And here I am getting to play on the exact same spanking bench that I've played on so many times before, that the suspension frame that we have set up in our temple space, I know it's creaks.

I know how it can swing.

I know how jarred I was at a recent performance that we'd been practicing on this one style of suspension frame, and we thought that's what we were going to get, but instead it was a different shape, and it threw the two of us off because we know how the other style works.

I know what my one collection of whips, or floggers more accurately, I am pretty crap at a single tail, what my collection of floggers, where it's located, and that my favorite ones are on top in a pair of rainbow striped socks so I can easily find them.

It's the trade-off to being in a home, to be able to dive in with one partner, or for people who have multiple partners, to be able to dive into that depth, and it's not about the number of people you're playing with, though that can be part of it.

Am I talking about getting to have sex with hundreds of people, or have sex with one, and the depth and the types of connections that can build with both?

And that's not to say in any way that people who have 17 partners can't dive in deep.

Oh, gods, I've been there, and I've loved it and embraced it and found in every single one something magical that connects me into them.

Something deep and profound.

Just that it's different.

Just that with that one partner, I know that every sigh.

I am coming to know the gasp with the click of the knife.

I am coming to understand them.

That I'm not teaching everyone how to give me a blowjob.

I'm teaching them how to give me a blowjob.

And perhaps that's too explicit.

And for some folks it is.

But it is the debate.

And what I bet is that people who are exploring this concept, should I create a world or see the world?

There's a piece of that argument that's there.

Do I invest in a house and decorate it the way I want to?

Do I hang my pictures on the walls?

Do I walk down the walls on the type of flooring that I desire?

Or am I just settling for this right now?

And it will be okay.

It doesn't have to be perfect.

Because really we're only going to be in the city for two years, and then we'll get to move on again.

We'll be in the city for another two years and we move on.

Both are valid choices.

I love, I have loved getting to put my feet in New York for two years, that I got to put my feet on the ground in Phoenix, Arizona for two years.

But I wonder for you what that debate is.

What things do you weigh out?

So deciding whether to stay and build something deep, or whether you go out and find all of the dashes and moments that have depth to them but a different duration.

Now, these are not black and white questions, right?

This is not to say that if you have a home that you live in and love in, it doesn't mean you can't travel.

That's not what I'm saying.

It really isn't because I'm still on the road.

But there is something different to debate.

Do I have a home?

Do I see the world?

Do I make some sort of magical combination, some cocktail of delight where I find the balance that's right for me?

Do I find something that works, truly works in my life, that I'm able to find that equilibrium?

When staying at home, the question also arises of if we are sexual explorers, what level or do we want to be involved in our community?

And what kind of community do we have or want to live in?

I can choose if I stay at home to enjoy my partner or partners in the privacy of my own home.

I can, as I've talked about in the podcast on Playing Well With Others, as well as in depth in my book with Molina Williams called Playing Well With Others.

I've talked about the notion that you can be a stay at home player, somebody who comes out once a month to meet somebody, somebody who comes out to one play party a year, somebody who goes to the fetish ball and watches flashy things, somebody who goes to one conference across the country so that they can't run into people from their hometown, whatever it might be, right?

You can choose and participate at the level you want to, up to and including diving in all the way up to your lips and becoming a kink leader and really joining in that leather leadership culture.

But if we're looking at what kind of community we want to have, that can be a different question.

For some people, they see their home community and look at the drama and look at the things that are happening there, and this is not just an issue of BDSM communities.

For the sacred sex practitioners out there who like listening to me, this applies to your community as well.

I ended up talking about that recently with Galina Krasikova on Weird Ways Radio, that that notion of the notions of consent and the notions of creating quality community and all of those things apply across the board.

That when you put a whole bunch of people together, every issue of humanity comes to play.

That this is not a utopia, this is a microcosm of the world at large.

You will likely have the socially awkward guy.

You will likely have the over-the-top look-at-me girl.

You will likely have the person who isn't quite sure of what their footing is, but is really excited to be part of stuff.

You will have the divas.

You will have the people who are sacrificing everything and aren't being seen.

These are the things that you will likely run into because not that it is part of a sexuality community, but because it's part of a community.

If you look around your office, you're going to see the same things.

There's a good chance if you look around your family, you're going to see the same things.

Humanity has certain archetypes that come to play.

So there are people who will look at their community and go, you know what, there are too many personalities here.

I don't want to be part of it.

Or they'll see perhaps a broken off community that has two different factions to it or two different groups within it and go, you know what, I don't have to, I don't want to choose.

I want to step back from it.

Other people who see that and go, oh, well I've gone to both types of events and I've noticed having done three or four of each that I tend to enjoy this one a little bit more.

Maybe I'll go to that other group once a year to see if it's changed at all, but I'm mostly going to invest my time with group B or group A, whichever one it happens to be.

For some people, it's I don't want to choose and I'm enjoying both.

I'm just not going to talk about kink politics and I'm just going to go enjoy myself.

I'm not going to get invested in their drama.

I'm not going to get invested in the story.

I'm just going to enjoy myself.

Now, your community might include conferences, might include play parties, munches.

It might also include, if you're trying to build a community rather than places of gathering, social time away from the only thing uniting us being kink.

Yes, in, say, the LGBT movement, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender movement, or I would personally say movements, because they're not all interlaced with each other in the ways that we would like.

I would say that there's a lot of communities there that are drawn together by the passion of their activism around one specific topic.

That there are support groups just for people who need to talk about the fact that they're bisexual and they just came out to their parents.

That they're lesbian and are trying to find, and our parents, and how do they take care of their children.

That there can be things where, quote, all they have in common is that they're kink.

But I would argue that actually those things, both of those have more than one thing in common.

They are people who just came out to their parents and are looking for support.

These are people who want to talk about family and also want to talk about sexuality.

These are people who are parents and want to be quality parents for their children and also have a specific sexual orientation or personal political identity or social identity or emotional identity.

These people have more than one thing in common.

Just because we throw whips with another human being, just because we both like kneeling, just because, insert the activity here, doesn't mean we actually have anything else involved in common with that human being.

We could have nothing else in common with that human being, which is why sometimes social time at the food table at kink events can be a little awkward, unless what you're talking about is kink.

People who say, Oh, did you see that scene?

Yeah, I saw that scene.

But as soon as one person cracks a joke about a political party, it can get a little awkward at times.

It can get a little strained.

Which can ask the question, is that really a community then?

If all we have in common is one thing, can we unify around one thing?

I would argue yes, but there are others who would argue no.

So it's something that you can sit with.

If all you have in common with the group of people that you gather with at a munch is that you all happen to enjoy spanking, that you all happen to enjoy doing animal-based role playing, if all you have in common is that you engage in tantric breathing exercises, do you have enough in common with those individuals to create a community?

If things turn out to have nothing else in common, is it enough?

Or are you in a place where it's, you know what, I'm happy I have things in common with people because I don't have anyone else to talk about this with.

And the gift of getting to talk with like-minded people who understand this one thing, even if that one thing is all we have in common, is such a blessing, is such desirous hope that I could have one other person who gets it, that someone on the other end of this podcast is saying, oh, someone else gets it, that you know that there are other people who can subscribe to that one, you know, Yahoo group who get it, who understand it, and that is enough to have community because they are there for us.

If they could be the person that we turn to at 2 a.m.

after a scene has gone wrong, how can that not be community?

If they are the person with whom we could ask a question about that spanking scene, was this okay?

Do you think I spanked her too hard because she started crying?

And the other person says, does she like crying?

I don't know, I've never asked her.

Well, maybe the next time you see her, you can say, hey, would you be open to a question?

I had a question after our last time of playing.

Did you like or have problems with?

That that opens up a doorway and gives us questions that we wouldn't have ever asked before because they've been there before.

That that can be community.

But community also requires stepping up for one another when things go wrong.

Or when consent or points are violated.

When somebody's nose, whose clear nose, were ignored.

When actual rape takes place, and the definition of actual is such a slippery slope.

So acknowledge that that's a slippery slope.

Just acknowledge it, and let's move forward in the conversation for a little bit.

That if some sort of abuse has taken place, let's use that word, if some sort of abuse has taken place, if some sort of violation of consent has taken place, how does the community respond?

If they are a community, what is the community's response?

Is it to go, oh, well, you know, Bob's a big member of the community, or Mistress Sally is, she's been around for a really long time.

The reality is clearly that she couldn't have done anything like this, or if she did do it, you're just not understanding her intent, or you know, you clearly haven't been in the scene long enough to really get it.

That's actually okay to have somebody shove their unprotected cock inside you when you specifically said no sexual activities should be appropriate within our engagement.

That, that's dubious as to its definition of community.

Now, if the definition of community that you are using is that we all back Bob or Mistress Sally no matter how inappropriate their conduct, that's a different definition of community.

For some people that is what is appropriate, that they will stand thick or thin through the person, to the person, with the person, no matter how inappropriate or unjustifiable their behavior truly was.

I recently got an email from Robert Lawrence and Carol Queen who are working on a consent project for the coming year.

And interestingly enough, as far as time is concerned, there is a survey happening right now that's about to wrap up.

So I please ask my listeners, go to the notes page and go and look at the notes and go to the NCSF Consent Survey.

So the NCSF is the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom.

They do political work helping people understand, both at the psychological level, like the psychiatric community level as well as at the legal level, that kink is not by definition abuse.

Kink is not by definition mental health.

It's not, you know, when we talk about sadism and masochism, we're not talking about clinical sadism and masochism.

We are not ripping the wings off butterflies.

And they also do a lot of work for people who have had their children taken away from them.

Because they are kinky, they do a lot of activism and even legal consulting there.

So they're doing a project that is an interview, sorry, a survey around understanding consent lines and where consent has been broken, where consent has been misunderstood, et cetera, within kink context.

So I please encourage people to go and listen to that.

But I got this message from Carol and Robert having talked to them at IMSL International, Ms.

Leather, about the notion of consent.

And we end up having a really great dialogue, especially Robert and I, not just at IMSL, but at another trip to San Francisco, about where consent lines are being crossed right now within kink and alt sex in general communities, right?

The kink community, the swinger community, the people who are doing animal role play, the fetish communities, etc.

Where are the lines being actively crossed and noticeably being crossed without lines being driven by those communities?

He pointed out that back in the 70s and 80s, in the queer communities he was part of, in the sling pits, in the gatherings of hot, nasty sex, whatever they might be, that there were a lot of gay men who were totally overstepping boundaries, that were coming in and giving hand jobs to people, who were specifically telling them no, people were pushing people away and the guys were keeping on coming back, sexual violations were happening, etc.

And that other people were seeing that in the women's communities as well, that were sex adventure, women's community, and more than that, sex outlaw communities.

Because this wasn't a, oh, we're being naughty, tee-hee-hee.

No, the activities were being illegal because owning a dildo in Texas was only made legal a couple of years ago, folks.

We're looking at time periods where homosexuality is still on the books as being illegal in a lot of places.

So gathering underground in a place where one can explore not just gay as sex, but kinky gay sex, who, right?

Including in spaces where men and women were playing together.

What happened, in his opinion, was that at least in the Bay Area, people said finally, you gotta stop that shit.

And then when that didn't work, they physically removed people from the properties and put them down on lists saying this person isn't welcome here anymore.

They said that this person is not part of our community and part of our community standards and part of what we want out of a community and what we expect out of community.

And he said that in the last seven or eight years, he has been gobstruck.

He probably didn't use that word.

That's one of my words.

But he's been shocked, horrified at how high of a percentage this has been, how high this rate has been acceptable in heterosexual BDSM populations.

That he sees outright consent lines in front of him being stepped, people's minds being stepped over.

Now, that question of, well, how extreme was it?

Was it that big of a deal?

I mean, he just doesn't have social cues.

He just went up and grabbed her boob.

It's not that big of a deal.

Actually, it's a pretty big deal.

That's really not cool.

And even if you do have social awareness issues, and I've met a number of people with, say, Asperger's spectrum, you know, are in that spectrum of neurological non-normativity who don't understand social norms and emotional constructs in all the ways that others might, even if they grab somebody's boob, even if it's an unspoken social norm, I mean, unspoken social rule, that that's not appropriate, it's okay to say, hey, it seems like you weren't aware that grabbing somebody's boob without explicit consent is not just not cool, it's going over a line.

And I know you got problems with it, but let's instead of saying I have problems with that behavior, how about we just add it to the list of behaviors you don't do?

Because having grown up to be an adult, whether it is an adult who just doesn't understand social norms, when it comes to alternative population spaces, because people can get so excited.

People can get so excited.

And I see this in pagan populations, too, where people go, oh my God, I get to be part of Circles and do all this stuff, and I'm going to join every single ritual I can, and I'm going to shout my praises for the gods at the top of my lungs, and you know, why not just step back and learn the social norms of that community?

Because jumping in, head first into the water, doesn't let you know what's underneath the water, and doesn't give an opportunity for the water to make space for you in a way that will let you soak into it, let you be in it.

And so what about giving you a new rule of how about don't do things to other people without their agreement?

Now, there are different subpopulations where this can be tricky, because understanding how people are giving consent is challenging.

Because there are some populations, such as the swingers community or the bathhouse community, where consent is given often non-verbally.

That if I put my hand on your thigh, there's information of I'm interested in doing more with you.

That then you can take my hand off your thigh or move away as a no.

And for people who don't understand body language at all, who think it's just okay to touch people's thighs or boobs, there might not be a clear understanding of what's happening.

But what's amazing is that instead of just saying no to someone, the act of giving an enthusiastic yes is spreading not just in kink communities, but in those swinger and bathhouse communities as well.

Instead of me just pulling my knee away from you, what about me grabbing your thigh and placing it higher up on my thigh?

What about in the world at large?

We practice not just saying no, which is so profoundly important.

Saying no can be so hard.

Saying no can be so hard, especially for those of us who were punished for saying no, especially for those of us who haven't been trained in how to say no.

But there's another level to it, which is not just not saying no.

Oh, well, she didn't tell me no, so I figured it was okay to go ahead and keep holding her down.

Well, he didn't say no.

So really, what's the issue here?

Instead of just not saying no, what about using our enthusiastic yes?

I dare you.

I dare you, listener at home.

I dare you, listener in your car.

I dare you, listener wherever you are, whoever you are.

I dare you to not just not say no, but the next time something comes up in your life, whether it is, do you want to go out to this movie?

Or whether it is, do you want me to touch you in this way?

Or whatever it might be, something that grabs you and makes you go, yeah, instead of just saying, yeah, sounds good, go, yeah, that sounds good.

Try it.

See what happens.

Now, mind you, that could be kind of creepy in some situations.

Do you want to go to the bathroom?

It might be a little socially awkward in some situations, like if you're at the office.

But with that said, try it out.

Because I would like to see a community where we embrace enthusiastic yeses.

And in doing so, we embrace and create people who want to be invested in this community.

People who, instead of having five or six people who work their butt-offs to make something work, we have 20, 30 people who want to work the door, who want to be able to bring in equipment, 20 or 30 people, 100 people.

Or if your community is five, five passionate people who want to be here and want to build something great.

Because if I'm staying home, I want to be around people that I want to give my enthusiastic yeses to.

I'm going to choose to spend time and energy in ways that help me embrace my enthusiastic yes.

And if that means staying at home and playing with my partner, unless we go out across the globe to go to Dark Odyssey Fusion next month, not quite across the globe, but you know, like 3000 plus miles.

It's 4000.

I don't know.

It's a long way.

I'm up in Alaska, folks.

If that's where I can get my enthusiastic yes and embrace it with a full heart, it's where I'm going to dig in.

It's where I'm going to put my energy.

And if I want to have that locally, it's also my job to spread it.

Because one of the most communicable things on the planet is an idea.

And it is your job to have this go viral.

Have this go viral.

State your enthusiastic yeses online.

Don't just go, it's not that big of a deal.

I guess I could do it.

Especially if coercion is involved.

Build the community that you deserve.

Build the community that we all deserve.

And that happens whether you are staying at home or whether your feet are traveling everywhere.

Whether you are creating a world or seeing the world.

Because its thoughts gonna linger, I can feel it.

To listen to my past episodes, please go and check out the various links and options for exploration in the show notes.

Or you can visit my website, passionandsoul.com and click the podcast button.

You can also subscribe via the RSS feed, iTunes or download the mp3s by visiting the show notes as well.

This has been The Passion And Soul Podcast.

And until next time, stay cool, have fun, be authentically you, and embrace your dreams.

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