126. Navigating the Risks of Kink and Edge Play with Dr. Elisbeth Sheff

Nicole: Well then, the first question I like to ask each guest is how would you introduce yourself?

Dr. Elisabeth Sheff: I would say, um, I'm Dr. Elizabeth Sheff. Most people call me Dr. Eli. Actually, most people call me Eli. I don't make people call me Dr. anything. Sure, sure, sure, sure. But if I'm in the world, you know, like trying to be a branded human, which is weird branding people, um, but I have that brand.

So I'm trying to be Dr. Eli. I'm a sociologist. I'm a researcher. I'm an expert witness. I'm a relationship coach, helping people in, who are trying to figure out consensual non monogamy and BDSM, and I'm an expert witness in court cases for either um, People who are facing losing their children because they have unconventional relationships or sex lives that freak other people out or kinky sex gone wrong.

I've testified in assault trials, rape, murder, kidnapping. Wow. So, that's the whole thing.

Nicole: I mean, I don't even know where to start with that. Do you have any stories that you think would be pertinent to share in the space regarding, I know, I'm ready. I'm ready.

Dr. Elisabeth Sheff: I would say, you know, one of the things is people do stupid things when they've been high and awake.

for days. One of my cases, I had somebody who, it was this person and their sweetie, had been high for, I think they hadn't slept in four days, which is not good for your brain and it's really bad for decision making. That degree of sleep deprivation plus mood alteration means you do stupid things. And so these two are driving around San Francisco, they've been talking about doing this kidnapping scene for days, you know, this whole time, so they decide what better time to do a kidnapping scene than lunchtime in the financial district of San Francisco.

She like. Jumps from the moving car, he pulls over literally onto the sidewalk, jumps out of the car, runs after her, grabs her, and pulls her by her hair back to the car. They're doing a scene. The people around them have no idea this is a scene. She's screaming. Oh god. Of course the bystanders, which I'm happy they did this because if it wasn't a scene, obviously this is bad news.

Yes, the bystanders pounce on him and grab him and now he's screaming and fighting back and they're like, call the police, call the police. So she freaks out because she's in the country illegally. Her tourist visa expired months ago. So, and if you get deported, You can't come back for at least 10 years, depending on the country.

You may never be able to come back. So avoiding getting deported is really important for some people. So she freaks out and runs away to Europe. Like, the country. He's in jail saying this was consensual. This was a scene. We were playing. This was, you know, like we were acting. I know her. I wasn't actually kidnapping her.

She finally calls from Europe days later to say this was a scene. He wasn't kidnapping me. I got all freaked out and ran away. So he ultimately, he was only prosecuted. For I think reckless driving public endangerment and resisting arrest or something, but not like kidnapping people

and be like, whoops, sorry. So they didn't prosecute him for that, which was really lucky for him. But as a cautionary tale, so many of my expert witnessing gigs involve people having. Kinky sex when they're high and especially high and sleep deprived when you've been on a bender for days. That is the wrong time.

Yeah. Do a kidnapping scene. You've got to be, I mean, kidnapping scenes in general, you need to be really careful. If there are bystanders, you need to figure out how you're going to manage that. You need to, you know, like, have very clear, usually it's a consensual non consent kind of thing, which your listeners might be Aware of as an aspect of BDSM when people generally playing with BDSM, people will have a safe word they can say to stop the scene.

In consensual non consent, people agree before the scene what will and won't happen, but during the scene, there's often no stopping. And people aren't necessarily sure when the scene will happen. You know, in consensual non consent, it's negotiated lots of different ways. But basically, it's a pretty advanced form of BDSM that people should be careful with because you can accidentally hurt your partner and really not meaning to.

Yeah, you can kill your partner without meaning to. I have seen that happen more than once with breath play. And it's Really dangerous and people do it when they're high and they don't stop fast enough. So, listeners out there in relationship anarchy land, be very careful with your BDSM. Have fun with it, make sure it's consensual.

And play sober. If you're going to do extreme things, do them sober. It could make a difference between life in prison or not. Mm hmm.

Nicole: Mm hmm. Yeah, I think this is, uh, your location in terms of the episodes that I'm recording is, I think, very, uh, divinely constructed here because, um, My own experience with psychedelics, cannabis being high and being able to like, really open myself up to a level that I probably couldn't have reached in a quote unquote sober state.

Right. But like the high risk of that practice, it makes me scared just to even talk about on a podcast. Right. But it's like, how do you hold that nuance of like, Okay. Yeah. Yes, super healing, super positive potentials here. But also quite literally what you're talking about, some of the most dangerous and risky things here at the same time.

And so then I just kind of sit in the center, like, do you talk about it? What do you say? Like, how do you navigate these conversations? And

Dr. Elisabeth Sheff: generally cannabis, people don't do the wacky shit. They will do after four days on meth. Methamphetamines have a much worse impact on decision making. Cannabis, you're likely to maybe eat too much.

You're likely to get distracted, you know, like leave the popcorn in the microwave or whatever. Low risk. Methamphetamines, however, have a really... Substantially different impact and a much higher risk than cannabis in terms of what people, their decision making processing, because also you don't tend to stay awake for four days on cannabis.

It doesn't have that impact on you. Whereas methamphetamines, especially with repeated. Use they pretty much just will fuck up your brain. It's okay if I swear. Oh,

Nicole: yeah, there's no rules in that way you go for it.

Dr. Elisabeth Sheff: Yeah, meth has a much different impact also than psychedelics psychedelics are higher risk to play with.

than cannabis as well. Cannabis and alcohol both can impair judgment, alcohol more so than cannabis actually. But those two people don't tend to do when they're on

methamphetamines are seriously bad news to mix. But people have so much fun with it. They gravitate towards having sex on meth. And I understand why. It's really fun for them. But it's so dangerous. So if you're gonna have sex on meth... Don't do edge play. Don't do breath play. Don't do kidnapping scenes.

Don't do blood, you know, anything that could, if it gets out of hand, that person dies. Right. Just don't do it.

Nicole: Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And I mean, even like cannabis is considered a psychedelic in some definitions, right? So like, it's interesting. I know, right? Is it, is it? So like, it is kind of similar in that way, but I think what the nuanced answer, you know, at least growing up, what I always heard was, um, as someone who did a lot of advocacy and volunteering and, um, sexual assault, you know, platforms, it was always like, you know, consent when you're on a substance is impossible to give.

Like you cannot consent when you're on a substance, you cannot consent when you're on a substance. And it's like, I don't know how realistic that is given that, you know, everyone has that one sip of alcohol or two sips of alcohol and then plays, right. Or that hit of cannabis or like. Are you on caffeine?

Like, hold on, you know, like what, you know, let's get like

Dr. Elisabeth Sheff: real about anti depressant.

Nicole: Totally. I've said that before. I'm on an SS, you know, I was on an SSRI. Like, did I give full consent then? That wasn't my sober state of consciousness. It's so tricky to like, navigate this. Cause the intention, right. Is good that you can give your full consent in that.

But I feel like it takes a much more like nuanced conversation about like. What's your relationship to this substance? Is this the first time you're smoking cannabis? Yeah, that's probably going to be really hard to give consent in that time because it's your first time navigating that world. Do you smoke every single day?

Well, then maybe that's your norm. You know what I mean? Like there's just such like a nuanced conversation to the relationship between, uh, substances and play and

Dr. Elisabeth Sheff: intimacy. Absolutely. But worth being careful.

Nicole: Absolutely. Absolutely. And so, yeah, I think it's, it's scary to when you're doing this on a podcast space, because I'm sure you've seen, like, a range of people.

I don't, you know, you put this out into the ether and you don't know who's listening. Right? Like, sometimes when I think about, like, my clients and therapy listening to that, you know, it's like, This, this kind of play isn't for everybody, right? Like you said, like some of the stuff is very varsity level things.

And like, you should be someone who has slept every single day before you do that. Right. And if you're not that person, this, this experience isn't for you. Right. Like, and there's no way as a podcast host to get into the nuance of whether this fits for everyone. So then I tend to try and talk about my own experience in this space and be the research subject of one, right?

Dr. Elisabeth Sheff: And the discussion of, you know, how has this impacted other people? It might have a range of impacts. And if you don't know, err on the side of caution. Because the, the impact on the rest of your life. Can be so extreme.

Nicole: Absolutely. And I think sometimes, you know, as like kin and B D S M is getting more popular in the internet, which means that there is a large group of people who are practicing these things maybe without community, right?

Without the like experience of leaning on other people who have knowledge in this and who can kind of say kind of what you're saying, right? Be careful, right? Like, so there's a lot of people who are playing with these things that don't have. The community structures to kind of like learn with as it has been in years past.

Dr. Elisabeth Sheff: I see that, especially in consent, that is incredibly important because people with community connections realize how difficult it is to establish and sustain consent, partially because there are. Hundreds of classes on it. Organizations like the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, they've been having this discussion for 25 years.

What is consent? How do you establish it? How do you sustain it? You know, and it's obviously not an easy conversation that's obvious and clear because it doesn't take 25 years to have that conversation. So the fact that kind of the professionals. Take 25 years to piece through how exactly to do this consensually is indicative of how difficult that is.

But then when people see, for instance, a lot of people get their sex education from pornography. Right. Pornography is notoriously terrible for showing. How to establish consent. People in pornography don't negotiate consent, they just jump into things. Also notorious for showing very poor safer sex practices.

It's a terrible way to learn about sexuality. It's great for getting off. It's great for attention, but as an educational... Tool for the kind of nuances of how to establish consent, how to sustain consent, very difficult. I have been on numerous cases. Where one person presents evidence and says, look, this is all the things we talked about.

We established consent. And the other person is like, we talked about that, but that didn't mean you could do it whenever you wanted to, or in this setting, or under these circumstances, or, so both of them are legitimately saying, we established consent. The consent did not cover that. And it's, it's really, I mean, when you're facing jail time, it means a lot, whether you actually had consent or not, or whether it was that rape and assault, or was that BDSM play, you know, it might be both at the same time, unfortunately.

consensually,

and the other person thinks this is assault. You know, and it's, I would say that playing sober is really important, but being excruciatingly clear about consent. And if you're going to do edge play, write that down. Because if your partner is dead and cannot testify in court that that was consensual, You're going down for murder one, which is very different than manslaughter.

Manslaughter is when you accidentally kill someone, and that is much less, it's still not good to kill people, but if you're doing it accidentally, the law takes that in a very different way than if you planned it out, if you have weapons, for instance, which a lot of people who do kink play will have knives and things like that.

Not that they're planning on stabbing. Their person, the knife play is generally more skin oriented and not as stabbing puncture oriented, but the presence of the weapons in the room, they think, okay, so that looks like premeditation. You know, if you get convicted for murder one, that could be a life sentence, depending on where you are, that could be a death sentence.

Yeah, wow. So, if you're doing edge play, write down your consent and get that person to write it down and sign it. And it can be helpful to show, oh, I thought this was okay and you think that's not okay. I've really got to give NCSF another shout out here. The National Coalition for Sexual Freedom has these really fantastic guidelines for consent.

It's called prior and explicit, explicit prior permission that it's not important. body language that indicates interest or laughing a lot of times people will it will seem like laughing and fun but laughing can also be a sign of nervousness a sign of not knowing what to say and fear but if you laugh and it and your partner thinks oh this is awesome they're really enjoying this but what your laugh really means is I'm kind of freaked out and I don't know what to say right and That's not consent, but it's so easy to mistake for consent.

So check out the guidelines on the NCSF. org, NCSfreedom. org. They have been working on this for decades, and they really have nailed it.

Nicole: Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you for plugging that. Cause I think it's, it's hard when it's all, this is all scary first off, right? Let's just honor that. Like, this is a scary conversation to think about.

Cause, and I think it's needed, right? Because if we only talk about the, the joys and the healing and the expansion of BDSM and kink, right? Like we're missing half of the equation, which is that there's real risk, which is sometimes or. partially what's so hot about it, right? Is that there's real risk. I love rock climbing because there's real risk in it.

And like, I could die when I go out climbing on a rock, right? And that's part of the edge of it. But then, yeah, you need to hold the reality that you got to check that rope. You got to check that equipment. You got to trust that partner that you're going up that mountain with. My God. Make sure your

Dr. Elisabeth Sheff: belayer is not on meth.

Totally

Nicole: hasn't slept for four days. Exactly. Right. Like totally. Yeah, exactly. Right. So all of those conversations are so important. So I appreciate you sharing all that. And, and the reality that like outside of even consent conversations, like we're always locked inside our own existential experience, right?

Like I am seeing you now in this conversation and having my experience that you were having the one of me and we can think we're talking about the same thing, saying the same words and we might not at all. Right. So then you throw something. Consent, you know, using our bodies and playing and then edge play on top of that.

My God, that gets messy real, real, real fast.

Dr. Elisabeth Sheff: And people can have good intent, right? And it can go terribly wrong. Even it doesn't, you know, intent does matter under the law in the United States. And even with good intent, if the person If you don't have consent and you kidnap and have sex with that person, that was assault and rape, even if you didn't mean it to be.

Mm hmm.

Nicole: That's where consent conversations become so important, right? Doing our best to have safer sex practices, right? Closer to whatever the best possible thing that we could do in that space. I'm planning on doing an independent study in the springtime about trauma informed kink competent care. And I think that trying to combine like my lens of clinical psychology and the trauma responses and yeah, what does consent look like in those spaces?

Because, you know. I don't know. It's just so tricky because you can talk about it all on paper, and then you have that experience in the play, and someone goes into a freeze response, and you can't tell, right? Like, there's just so much nuance in that. Um, I mean, and without a doubt, that's 100 percent why we don't go on non verbals, right?

Uh, I've had my experience with people who've tried to explain that that's how they practice and I'm like, I got to teach you and they were like, I don't think I need to be taught. And I was just like, okay, this is, you should

Dr. Elisabeth Sheff: pay me for this. You're playing with fire there, honey, the non verbal thing. I was like, at that point you think it does.

Nicole: Totally, I'll teach you, it's okay. Um, but yeah, the second that someone's in that space and you just don't know, you know, where their head's at, they could be having a complete trauma response that you're not even

Dr. Elisabeth Sheff: seeing. That also prevents them from safe wording. Yes, that's what I'm saying, yeah. Oh, that's scary and dangerous.

I know. I guess what I would say is you've really gotta know your partner. Yeah. Which means working up slowly. Totally. Have short scenes that aren't that intense. And focus on aftercare, you know, the scene is just about half of it, you know, but once you once the scene is over and you're talking about the aftercare, be very clear.

So how did that go? Was there any part of that that was uncomfortable for you in a way that you didn't want it to be? And then slowly build, slowly, carefully, start small, start slow, with a lot of communication afterwards. You know, you could even have four or five scenes in a day, if you want to, little mini scenes, with communication afterwards, to be like, okay, then let's try that again.

Or, okay, let's try it this other way, or do this other thing. A lot of risk is not only the mood alteration, but really inadequate conversations around what are they doing? What's okay? What's not? Okay. So, yeah, go slow, lots of communication, and if you are doing something extreme, get it in writing. Yeah. Get your permission in writing, and that will make all the difference if you end up in court.

Nicole: Okay. That's good to know. Good to know. Yeah. Because when I go rock climbing outside, we don't do, you know, the most radical, uh, High stakes, hardest routes with someone I've never climbed before, right? Like there's such a practice of, Hey, maybe we meet in the gym. Maybe we start with that slow thing, you know, and then we, we go outside and we try a really, really easy route that we know we'll, you know, get rather than going to that huge, you know, high risk.

If the trad gear falls out, someone could fall off to the ground kind of stuff. You know, like, I think there's just so many parallels in types of edge and risk in different areas of our lives that like. Clearly makes sense, right? Of like, yeah, you start slow and you communicate and you have, you know, written conversations about what you're going to engage in, in that space, right?

And it's, it's like the same thing can be applied here of, of taking it slow. And, and also I think there's so much space to hold for how hot that is. Like, my God, I love being teased. My God, like let's take it so slow that I have to beg you for more. Like where's the joy of that, you

Dr. Elisabeth Sheff: know? Yes. And I, I think that actually, that's such a good point that it can extend the play in a really delicious way.

Yeah, absolutely. The slowness. And if you need to take a break and masturbate or something, that's fine. You know, like, so you can go back and focus on what you're doing. I mean, the top, usually the bottoms hands are usually tied or, you know, whatever, unable to masturbate themselves, but the top could totally do that for them, you know, and You know, extend things out with slowness, I think is a good point that it's hot, too.

Yeah,

Nicole: absolutely. But yeah, you've seen probably maybe the best and the worst of all this sort of stuff, I would imagine.

Dr. Elisabeth Sheff: Yeah, I mean, I go to a lot of conventions and things to, for instance, listen to the people who do a lot of breath play. Like, how do they play? Safely. Breath plays a really tricky one. You have to be super careful with it in part because.

Like, even if you're not pressing directly on the windpipe and you're pressing on the veins on the side of the neck, which is, I mean, it's, they call it breath play, but it's more circulation play, like you're prohibiting circulation from the brain. Sometimes you can let go of those veins and they, if you have collapsed it, it will not bounce right back depending on the person's elasticity.

Of their vein. You can also induce seizures, even in someone who's never had seizures before. Making people go unconscious can be very dangerous and people just do breath play like willy nilly. It's probably the highest risk that I see in court. I've worked on three different murder by breath play cases and I really don't think in any of them it was intentional murder.

I think in all three of them, it was an accident. And I mean, it changed those people's lives permanently. One of them was on death row. I was on his case where they are like, he received inadequate representation the first time. So they're trying him again. And he was destined for the electric chair, and they decided it was manslaughter instead.

It made a huge difference, but still, it's... Even spending time in prison for manslaughter is not fun, you know. Yeah,

Nicole: yeah. And I don't think I've really had enough space to talk about what breath play is. I mean, I'm thinking about, yeah, blood chokes on the side, choking, other sorts of things. Do you think you could flesh that out a little bit for the listener?

I, I never know who's listening. I imagine it's always a mix of like half like really kinky people and other people who are like, what the hell is this? What are you talking about?

Dr. Elisabeth Sheff: Yeah, totally. People do breath play because. Oxygen deprivation combined with orgasm is really intense. People love that sensation.

Mm hmm. So the oxygen deprivation, even, you know what, little kids will do oxygen deprivation, too. Like, they'll, I mean, a lot of people play with oxygen deprivation and don't necessarily think of it as a sexual thing. Like, it provides... This kind of ringing sensation, the

Nicole: Wilmhoff breathing, all this sort of yoga breath, lots of things.

Dr. Elisabeth Sheff: Totally. That is really appealing for a lot of people just as mammals. The brain is like, Ooh, that feels sparkly. So the way to do breath play safely, again, these, these guidelines are coming from the national coalition for sexual freedom because they have looked at this quite a bit because there's been so many terrible accidents.

But what, what the kind of pros recommend, the safest way to do breath play is to cover the mouth and nose with a hand at the same time. Like, And then people can just let go, because if you have something like a ligature around someone's neck, you can't necessarily get it off quick enough if they're literally dying and it's a belt or something that's stuck.

Sometimes people, you know, and you can't get a knife in there to cut it. You might be desperately trying to get it off. Whereas if it's your hand, you can just let go. Um, sometimes people will do like plastic bags and things over people's heads. Again, anything you have to remove to allow blood flow. Could create an emergency situation.

Also, compression on the neck is really popular. A lot of people do it that way, but it's dangerous. Partially because of what I already said about the blood vessels don't always, depending on their elasticity, they may like, pop right open and blood, there it goes. Or, if they're collapsed, It might take medical intervention to get them to open up again, and you probably don't have what you need there in your basement for the correct medical intervention.

Some people will do it by pressing on the front of the neck, and that is really dangerous. You can damage someone's trachea, you can damage their vocal cords. There's little teeny, like, delicate structures. In there that if you break them, bad things happen. So the front of the neck is actually pretty delicate, which is one of the reasons it's a killer move in martial arts.

If you like, hit somebody right in the throat, they're down. You know, and they're like clutching their neck and they're writhing around on the ground, you know, it's like a coup de gras in martial arts. Also, weirdly, because breath play appears to be so common in pornography and so common in just kind of sex play in general, a lot of people feel like, oh, that's just part of sex, like it doesn't have to be negotiated.

Well. That's really scary. Yes, it is. If you were on the receiving end of non negotiated breath play. Oh, yeah. Something that if you had talked about it, might have been super hot. But if your partner just grabs you and starts choking you. During sex without talking about it beforehand. People in pornography love that.

People in real life, they get scared that you are trying to kill them. You know, like, really, really scary, especially if there's a gender power difference. It can be incredibly terrifying. And you were talking about the freeze response. If the person who, the law will label the perpetrator, who isn't intending to perpetrate, they're like, This is fun.

This is hot. They're not trying to be a perpetrator, but suddenly they've gone from sex partners to perpetrator and victim like that. There's so much room for high risk, high damage outcomes. In breath play that that should remain and I'm not saying no one should ever do breath play. I'm saying do it very carefully with a lot of discussion beforehand.

Don't just bring it on your partner. The other thing is sometimes people will mistake. Previous consent as permanent or ongoing consent, and just because you did something one time with someone doesn't mean that person has blanket ability to do that to you for the rest of their lives. You have to renegotiate ongoing consent, and it's okay to change your mind, even if you're the submissive.

You can say, okay, I, I agreed to this. And now that we've done some of that, I've changed my mind. I don't want to do that anymore. And that's okay. And if a dominant says, no, you agreed to it, then that's a bad DOM. You got to get away from that DOM. Any DOM that will not allow renegotiation is dangerous. And you don't, even as, as a new sub, often people are like, Oh, I can't, you know, I can't disappoint my Dom.

I can't like, do the wrong thing. So if the Dom says I can't renegotiate, that must mean I can't. Oh no. And that's bullshit. You can always renegotiate. And if your dom doesn't let you, then that is a red flag, a huge red flag. Mm

Nicole: hmm. Absolutely. Absolutely. So I'm curious for you and for my own personal experience, like, how do you kind of navigate what the edge is of safety in these experiences?

Dr. Elisabeth Sheff: You know, that's a problem because a lot of people don't know, and even in the medical field, don't necessarily know what the impact is of repeated hypoxia. That's, that's what it's called when your brain isn't getting enough oxygen is hypoxia. They don't know necessarily. What the impact of repeated hypoxia is for long term, they do know what the impact of long term hypoxia can be either a traumatic brain injury or death.

I mean, and you don't want to do either one of those things to your partner. So I'm not sure even where to get that information. Like, I don't know if anybody knows it. One of the things they've been doing research on, kind of comparing, there's this extreme sport called free diving. Oh. Where people set world records for going the deepest and staying under the longest, but it's, it's almost like scuba diving with no scuba gear.

And interestingly enough, it has some of the same impacts, but much less judgment. Yes, thank you. It's like, it's okay to do this extreme. Oh, man, as long as it's in the name of sport, totally. But if you're doing this extreme thing in the name of orgasm, oh, then you must, there must be something wrong with you.

You're weird. And we're not, we're just going to put you in jail. Whereas it's okay if it's a sport. Absolutely. So the researchers are comparing hypoxic injuries in brains from freedivers who die sometimes. Freedivers have drowned. You know, freedivers have bubbled to the surface and had lasting brain injury from oxygen deprivation.

And that seems somehow just more, more comfortable for people to accept than doing it in the name of sex. And I'm... No judgment for me on either of them, but no one is ever prosecuted for the death of a freediver. They're assumed to be doing it consensually to themselves, and they're never prosecuted for self assault.

The way, in some places, with BDSM, consent to assault is not a legally admissible condition. way to get around it. In some places you cannot, you cannot consent to your own assault. And they, so they define any kind of impact play or restraint, which are super common in BDSM, impact play and restraint are like the bread and butter of kinky sex.

You know, they will define that. as definitionally non consensual and that you can't consent to it, so whoever is doing it is completing assault. So, I don't want to make it sound like everyone is prosecuted all over the place all the time for kinky sex, you know, it's, I'm, I'm talking about a very select portion because you, you're not going to end up On my caseload.

If you're having unproblematic kinky sex, right? Because the cops aren't getting involved. No one's dead, right? No one is being prosecuted for anything. And that is the vast majority of kinky sex. People do it in private. They may not even think of it as kinky. It just might be fun games they play with each other.

And maybe they're not thinking this is BDSM. But All of these risks we're talking about, they come with these higher risk activities and especially doing high risk activities. Badly is are those are the people I see in my case. Um, so listeners out there. I don't want you to think. Kinky sex always has these horrible outcomes because the vast majority of kinky sex, the outcome is fun and play and catharsis and release and kind of like a vacation from mundane life.

I mean, how often do you get to be the Marquis de Sade? Maybe all the time, if you're lucky, I don't know, but I gotta say, Marquis de Sade probably has a more interesting life than your average barista, you know, so if you're like, hey, I need a vacation from fucking Starbucks, I'm working all the time. What a fun little break you get to suddenly be, you know.

Someone different.

Nicole: Absolutely. Absolutely. And that surrender that you can have in those spaces is just so it's so juicy in it. Yeah. I mean, I think it's an important conversation because at least on this podcast, I'm always talking about the ideas of informed consent. I came from a research background, you know, I'd be consenting people to things and that kind of always stuck with me.

Right? And so, like, If the conversations we're having in the space are only about the, the goods and the potential healing that can happen through this sort of work, like we're not giving people the full informed consent, which is that this is inherently risky. This is inherently dangerous. And again, the sexiness of that, but also the need to talk about the risks of that are really important.

And I think, where do I learn this? I can't just like Google, like how much is too much, right? Or when do I cross that line? And Where's the research on it? And I think when I read things like the body keeps the score and I start to ask bigger questions about like, even though I'm enjoying this pain, is it potentially inflicting harm on my body in long term ways?

Right? So then I, and I started to think about, okay, you know, like someone like someone, a football player, right? You love pain. You go into that, you take that tackle, that intense, you know, and you enjoy that process and the sport and the hype that comes with all of that. But do you still have long term body?

Consequences and are, and am I subjecting myself to long-term body consequences by doing this sort of play. And

Dr. Elisabeth Sheff: a lot of people like Doms will get repeated stress injuries from using the same hand to whip or flog or something like they'll get wrist stress injuries. Not everything lands you in court or prison or something, sometimes.

You get repeated stress injuries also from suspension. It's important to know. I don't see this at all in my caseload, but I, I read a lot of research and some research recently came out about how suspension. When it's not done right can put stress on nerves and give you neuralgia or neuropathy. There's some kind of ongoing.

You can within 10 minutes, you can do permanent damage. to nerve bundles if you're suspending someone wrong and nerves are everywhere throughout the human body so trying to avoid impacting the nerves when you're suspending someone is super difficult so doing suspension at least what this article I read was saying be really aware of tingling that is the first sign tingling and If you're experiencing tingling in any of your extremities or localized tingling where a rope is touching, come back down and reorient the rigging, you know, so.

Nicole: And it's and it's even more nuanced than that, right? Because, like, as someone who's been a bottom and has gone through that, like, training of learning to tell the difference between, like, a circulation cut off versus a nerve cut off. It feels even different because and I mean, I guess maybe the biggest lesson of this conversation and continued conversation is that community is important and that, like.

I would never recommend just picking up a rope and trying this shit in your own home, you know what I mean? Like, you need to learn from someone. You don't go rock climbing and pick up a rope and just climb a mountain. You learn from someone who knows what's the risk and the dangers, right? But like, yeah, when I was in the class of bottoming, like, I, I, I've had experiences where I've lost, um, like, the ability to move my fingers and my...

Um, index finger in my pinky, right? So, and that's kind of how you could tell the difference between like a full circulation cutoff, or maybe you get that tingling in the whole hand cause it's a blood cutoff versus like when you get that sensation in the fingers and you can't move the fingers, we're starting to go into nerves.

Right. And like that becomes such a crucial. Piece is the bottom of being aware because it's not just always the top doing these skills. Like the, like the top has no idea what's going on in my fingers. You know what I mean? So it was very much so on me to be able to like tune in and be like, okay, like that's that piece.

We need to come down now. Right? Scissors are always in the space. We can cut me out right at any point. Right? So it was such a process to have learning how to bottom. And I think even coming back to our beginning point of the conversation, like that was done through small little skills. Baby steps. I was not suspended the first time I tried anything with rope, right?

Like there was months and weeks and hours of training with someone who knew how to do this that was in the room with us. You know what I mean? Like, it's just, uh, yeah, I get scared. Very careful. Yeah. Might be doing this like just on their own. And then it's just, yeah. High risk, high reward stuff

Dr. Elisabeth Sheff: here. And I think one of the things that keeps people from getting the community involvement that you keep bringing up, which I agree is crucial, these kinky motherfuckers, they have learned over a long time how to make it fun and safe.

And they have put a lot of effort into doing it in a way that with positive outcomes, and that's what you want. From your kinky sex is a positive outcome long term positive outcome and that is available, but there's so much shame around. even having kinky desires that I think a lot of people will, you know, watch pornography and get ideas or read books or watch movies or whatever.

But the idea of like searching out community and identifying yourself as someone who might be interested in the kind of skills and wisdom That community has to provide means facing the shame of having kinky desires, and I personally think kink is really widespread. A lot of people will research indicates up to 70 percent of people have kinky fantasies.

And I got to think that that is an under. Representation because it's one of the things a lot of people won't admit to. So I think the sex negativity and the shame around kinky sex and having kinky desires and like wanting to get smacked during sex or wanting to spank someone or something, you know, we hear just from children on up like, that's weird.

That's gross. Yeah, not Want to do that and if you like that, there's something wrong with and that really sinks in and unfortunately has the impact of people then won't pursue information. They won't pursue knowledge or wisdom. I've had people opposing counsel in court say. There is no research on BDSM.

Like, you can't have a court expert on BDSM because there's nothing to be an expert in, and I'm like, well you clearly haven't been reading. Like, there are decades of research on BDSM, you know, like, we've been talking about this, not me, because I wasn't around yet, but, you know, people have been talking about this Since the 1960s and it was happening way before that.

They just weren't necessarily publishing. Sure. Much research outside of, I mean, the sexologists in the 1880s, were looking at p dsm, sadism and masochism. Those terms come from, I think it's Kraft Ebbing in like 1886, looking at unconventional sexual practices. So this is not new. Right. But the. The shame around it is also not new, but it's really potent in terms of keeping people from getting education and getting the resources they need to have fun and fulfilling and safe.

kinky sex lives with positive long term outcomes. And that is absolutely possible, but not if you, if the shame is so intense, you can't talk about it, then you also can't talk to your partner. And what if, what you need to say to your partner is, I want you to do these things to me, but I want you to do them safely.

And you can't do that. Sometimes you end up. Getting them in other ways that are not helpful. They are not positive. You know, you can get that kind of stimulation in other ways that are not negotiated and dangerous.

Nicole: Yes, 100 percent looking at all of those situations with power and people who use that, you know, to like wield that to have people to do coercion.

I mean, like, what if in another world we were able to let go of that shame and then have a space where we could inherently play with that in a safe container? My God, I think it's just so clear to us probably sitting in that how that is a way to like channel that experience in a healthy and safe way.

But to the outside world, because of all that shame and stuff, it's not talked about, right? And, and man, if I, you know, thinking about it, like, from my lens as a therapist, like, the best thing for, to undo the shame is to find community. I know that leap into it is, is difficult and so hard, but. Once you get into there and then you meet the people in there and we still deal with the imposter syndrome of, damn, can I identify with this label?

Um, once you get into there, then you're like, oh, everyone's talking about this. Oh, everybody does this. Oh, like the ability for me to come onto this podcast and talk about what I'm exploring in my own personal life and yada yada, it would have been impossible were it not for the. A 100 whatever guests that have come before who have been like, Oh, I do this.

Oh, I do this. And my community looks at me when I say this and they're like, yeah, that's hot and sexy. If I went out and said that to people and they shamed me, I would be so silent. That's like everything that psychology says, right? It's like, my voice will shift depending on who I'm. I'm accepted with.

Otherwise we come in and we go quiet. So it's like, oh yeah, if you can do that extra step of like hopping over the difficulty and the discomfort to get into community, it can be transformative in so many different ways. And like, I was loving what you're talking about, like the depth of kink for everybody or the depth of.

I asked someone once like a juicy question of like, Oh, is everyone kind of kinky? And they pushed back and they're like, no. And I was like, okay, I think this is a fair point because like, when we think about like, what it means to be kinky in terms of like the identity, right. And the practice and the 20 plus years of training and that sort of space and, and making this a part of your life and your craft and your artistry and your skill, like, et cetera, like that's a very specific.

Thing compared to maybe like gently tying someone in in your bedroom or wherever. Occasionally, right? Like in honoring that nuance. However, however, man, does everyone like to play with power? Maybe I can go there and claim that, right? And the amount of like, Stories I see of like, I grew up, you know, very heterosexual.

I had no idea it was queer. Like I was always attracted to this idea of this like man who comes in and is so strong and controls and moves me and does all that's called a dom. You know what I mean? Like that's not a full

Dr. Elisabeth Sheff: human.

Nicole: That's a dom. You know what I mean? It's like so many people are attracted to that narrative and that power and that experience.

And I'm like, yeah, you like to play with power. You like to play with power.

Dr. Elisabeth Sheff: Absolutely. And the other thing is a lot of people have fantasies that they don't necessarily want to actually do in real life, and that's okay. That is completely okay to have a very active fantasy life, and you don't have to ever do any of those things in real life, you know?

The other thing is, you don't have to feel guilty about your fantasy. If you're fantasizing about something, and you're like, Oh my God, I would never want to tell anyone that fantasy. That's okay, keep it, you know, you have permission to play with your own brain. It's totally fine. Fine. So I think releasing some of the shame and the concern around other people's judgment is crucial for self acceptance and social acceptance on the wider social scale.

I think we have a lot of people who Judging themselves and then they turn that judgment outwards, you know, and try to make laws about other people and try to keep other people from doing things, you know, I'm really seeing it with this weird obsession. The right wing has about transgender people grooming children for molestation.

When if you look at the statistics about who is doing the molesting, it is. White, heterosexual, cisgender, religious men, pastors. It is not the drag queens. Ooh. It's like they are thinking, I want to do this to children. Those people must want to do this to children. I'm going to get them. And like, focusing it in a place where, I mean, and I have been looking.

I have looked hard and there are literally zero cases of drag queens molesting children. Zero. Whereas there are hundreds. I mean, the number of, of heterosexual men that molest children who are religious figures. Yeah. I mean, it turns my stomach. Hundreds, if you look in at least what the news is reporting, and you know, if there were drag queens doing it, the news would be all over that because it would be this confirmation bias.

So I think those people's own shame makes them predators and it makes them turn it against other people. Whereas if they could just admit it. The drag queens aren't the problem. It's the pastors who want back to what you were saying about playing with power. That's a very powerful position. They're playing unethically with power by raping children, but they're pretending it's someone else doing it.

They're focusing on other people.

Nicole: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. And maybe we can name that what, like, the danger of repression, you know what I mean? Yeah. Like, wow. And so then hence the ethical need for people like us to have this conversation about what does it look like to bring that into a consensual, negotiated, safer space so that way we don't have these experiences where these parts of ourselves that we all have and enjoy.

Come out in that way. We need to find containers and do it in a way that has the level of informed consent about it to channel that. And then dare I say there's pleasure and healing and ecstasy in that space. When we do do that with the informed nature of all the risks that are possible in this high reward, high risk

Dr. Elisabeth Sheff: play.

And let me just say, I know I've been kind of talking about the downside and there's all sorts of upsides to BDSM, but. It leads at least for me to age play like there's a huge difference between someone pretending to be eight years old or 12 years old and engaging sexually with someone versus an actual eight year old or a 12 year old and I see a lot of confusion about that like if you want to do age play, does that mean you're a pedophile?

And no, it does not. In fact, a lot of the people who want to play. With someone with, you know, a 35 year old person who's pretending to be eight, you will get a very different reaction from the 35 year old pretending to be eight than you would from an actual eight year old and what they want as the reaction from the 35 year old who's pretending to be eight or 12 or whatever, you know.

Back again to the religious figures, they are actually going after the 8 year olds and the 12 year olds, you know, and that's under no circumstances can children give consent, even if they're, and you can't, you out there, you listeners can't see me making the air quotes, even if the children are in quote, flirting, it is the adult's job to If a kid comes to sit on your lap, that does not mean the sexual thing that you think it means to them.

It means they're looking for comfort and security and just because you get aroused by it doesn't mean they're trying to do that. So don't blame it on the kids flirting with you adult human. Take responsibility for your actions and do not molest children. There's my little soapbox there for a minute because that has huge negative impacts for their whole.

lives. I know. Their entire life and the chances that then they will become predators later in life increase if they are molested as children. That leads to higher molestation rates later in life. So just cut the whole cycle. Don't mess with the kids.

Nicole: Right. And if you have had that, there's also, I guess I'm, I'm feeling this reaction, like as a therapist who has worked with people in that space to like holding the space that like, it's not inevitable that if that has happened to you, right.

That, that, that you will do that again, right? Like there's so much Absolutely. Yeah. There's so much healing that you can do to be able to like work through that. 'cause I think that's one of the hard things is being like a therapist is just seeing the wide amount of times that has happened. Like I, I guess, you know, you, you hear about it and you think it happens in these rare cases, and then you get into the therapy room and you hear it again and again and you're like, wow, this is way.

More widespread than you think and so like there's just so much space though to like, yeah break that Generational trauma and to take a different direction and to heal from that I I believe it's completely possible to never like close the you know I don't know how to say that like the trauma is always there the experience is always there But to be able to go through it and to heal through it and to step into a space of being able to sexually thrive Like that's the passion work that I'm So, you know, happy to be in the space to do with people because of how widespread it is.

Right. It's wild. It's wild.

Dr. Elisabeth Sheff: BDSM can be a great healing tool for healing past things that happen. And if you can recreate them, but have control over them in a different way, that can be really healing. For a lot of people, but like rape play, for instance, that is the kind of edge play that you really need to be well rested and really need to have discussed incredibly thoroughly.

Don't just do a rape scene with somebody you just met and you haven't slept in three days and you're both high on meth. That's recipe for disaster. Rape play is right up there with breath play in terms of the kind of edge play you need to be really careful with because it can be really healing on one edge or it can be re traumatizing if you do it badly.

Nicole: A hundred percent. A hundred percent. And that's where it's all about that. Informed consent, right? The informed consent to these beautiful, risky, and inherently dangerous and healing all at the same time, like the yes. And right. Like, we can't get into this black and white thinking about these things, which is frequently what society thinks, right?

BDSM pathology, something's wrong. It's like, man, let's just open this up to have a way more nuanced conversation about all the different shades that occur in this and all the different ways that this can go. So I'm very thankful that you are someone in the same space that has that same, like, nuanced answer to the beauty and to the inherent risk of play, right?

Dr. Elisabeth Sheff: Absolutely. It's a very rich practice that can fuck you up if you're not careful.

Nicole: Yeah! And also I want to add to the listener who's listening, and like, like you had mentioned earlier, is having those thoughts and fantasies about kink, but is not... Living them out or like actually practicing them, like you can still claim that identity of kinky, right?

Like, I think a lot of people would be like, it's kind of like, you know, queerness, right? You have those queer longings and people would be like, Oh, can I identify as queer if I've never kissed someone of a different gender? Right. And it's like, yes. A hundred percent. You're kinky. Welcome to the club. You know?

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I want to hold a little bit of space as we come towards the end of our time in case there was something on your heart. Maybe we didn't talk about. Otherwise, I have a closing question. I can ask all my guests.

Dr. Elisabeth Sheff: You know what I would, I would love to talk about because it's just so much more fun and positive and empowering.

Now, I mean, BDSM can be absolutely fun and positive and empowering, but we've talked a lot about kind of the downsides of BDSM. And just kind of on a more happy note, I've been working on this thing that I'm really excited about with my colleagues. It's the bonding project and you can find it at bondingproject.

com. It is a relationship test that helps people consider if they want to bond one to one, one to many, many to many, or solo. And it's designed to help people. It's not as much of like a psychological diagnostic tool that tells you this is what you are. It's much more of like a conversational tool. First to have with yourself thinking about, well, what, what do I really want?

And then. To have with partners right now, we are beta testing the 2nd round. We had 1 come out 2020. Fantastic results. People really liked it. But one of the big things we heard back in feedback was we were trying to measure too much with just one test. We were looking at like sex and romance and kind of love all clumped together.

And it just didn't work for some people who separate them. For some people, they're like, of course, all that's, that's one thing. Other 12 different things and you can't really. Have them. You can't pretend that they're one thing because it doesn't work. My relationship

Nicole: anarchist . Absolutely.

Dr. Elisabeth Sheff: Absolutely. So we've disaggregated it and now we've got one quiz on money, another cohabitation.

One on sex, one on romance, and then we're working on family. We're working on time. You know, how do you want to spend these various resources? Do you want to, Live with non-romantic partners, but share money with romantic partners. You know, some people probably not, but mm-hmm. , I just made that part up and that seems kind of strange that that combination once, once we're done, pilot testing it, we will put the official versions back up again and people can start taking it.

If you're interested in pilot testing it, I'm happy to share. The link, and people can take it and see what they think. Um, we'd love some feedback. Just to see if, you know, if we're hitting the mark with this. What we're working on right now is developing a scoring mechanism, which is a challenge that has been really interesting.

And eventually what we'll have is a dashboard where people can not only take the test over time to see how they change over time in terms of how they want to manage their resources and their relationships, but also share their results with other people and do a comparison. So let's say there's a polycule with five people in it.

Yeah. And. You know, three of the five are very clearly communalists. When it comes to space and money, they want to just combine everything. But 2 of the 5 are like, I want my own space and I want my own money, you know, seeing that coming and identifying that issue before. They're trying to buy a house or something like that, you know, so they can talk about it and decide, okay, if we're going to look for a house, we've got to get one with a granny unit because this person needs separate space, or this person is not going to buy the house with us and we're going to get the house.

And that person is going to have their own apartment and they're going to come see us and have dinner or something. So we've got big exciting plans. For it. And here we are in, you know, about to release the second round of tests once we're done pilot testing and we've got the scoring mechanisms worked out so the computer can just do it so people can get their results right away.

So we don't have that yet, but we used to have that, but we really had underestimated the amount of interest. we would get. And we had like the back of the house, the computer, I don't understand how it worked. It didn't work very well. If it had like three to four people in an hour, it could totally manage.

But when we were having 300 people take it in an hour, the system, the computer system couldn't handle it and would break down. So people were getting really frustrated. They weren't getting their results quickly enough. But we need to figure out. Well, for one thing, it's a free test. We're not making any money on it.

It's costing us money. It costs us about 500 a month to have the website and everything running. So people aren't spending money. So we were like, give us a break. We're trying the best we can with no money. Try and say, you know, come up with this thing that's useful for you. So it's weird how some people will get really kind of entitled and angry if they don't get their results in like 10 minutes.

They're so mad! Like, you guys, we're giving this to you for free, we're doing like this shoestring thing, we're glad you're interested, but would you give us a minute? You know, so. Totally. We

Nicole: could have a whole conversation on entitlement. Um, but that's. It kind of reminds me of like the, like, almost like taking a next step of like when you're stepping off the relationship escalator and you're starting to look at that relationship smorgasbord and the way that you want to create your life.

Like, here is, you know, a sort of pool to be able to think about that in a deeper way, which is so neat and so powerful. And at least for, for me and like what I feel. feel in the, I mean, the internet and all of these spaces, the growing, um, listeners that are growing on this podcast at a radical rate. I think that there's more people who are starting to ask these questions and realize that, you know, like we live our lives.

We live off of narratives. Archetypes stories and for at least actually for a very recent time, let's be honest, this is not how we always constructed relationships for, you know, centuries before, but for our recent, right, exactly right. And this is not what we've always done before, but recently within our, you know, decades of whatever time it's the, you know, two people house kids, yada, yada, that is the pathway to a success.

It kind of reminds me of when, you know, you first step into college, you're like, okay, I'm going to be a lawyer because that's. The pathway to success. There's five options. I get here a doctor. Exactly. Dr. Lawyer this, right? And it's like, people are starting to step in here. Exactly. Right.

Dr. Elisabeth Sheff: And then you're like, but shit, I can't do math.

Doctor and engineer are

Nicole: out. Yeah, exactly. What's left. Exactly. Yeah, uh, I think people are getting into this space where they're kind of realizing like, oh, whoa, I have all this freedom to create the life that I want, which reminds me of a post it note I have up there about from Kierkegaard, which is anxiety is the dizziness of freedom, right?

Like with that, like when you crack that open and you tell someone like, Hey, You get to construct your whole life, all the relationships, and all the different ways that you want. That can be like anxiety provoking. That's like walking down the Walmart where there's like millions of options and you're like, Wow, you know what I mean?

Like,

Dr. Elisabeth Sheff: So many pasta sauces, who knew? Yeah, totally, exactly,

Nicole: right? And then it's like, it's much easier to fall into this like, One pasta sauce, and this is how you make the pasta, and this is how you have happy, healthy pasta. But man, the amount of people that have made that dish, got on there, are taking those first bites and are saying, I don't like this, something's off.

Woo, come talk to us, come talk to us.

Such a cool tool, I'm sure that's going to like, really like, get people thinking of like, what's a different way to connect and build these lives. Hopefully like down some of that anxiety by giving a tool where you can kind of get concrete examples of what that looks like.

Dr. Elisabeth Sheff: And compare your results with your partner.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We really hope. We're really excited about it and the amount and degree of response we've had on just like no budget, no advertising, nothing. You know, has really been overwhelming. People are hungry for this. It's exciting. Um, and if we could, if we had any money, we could get a much better computer system.

That's what we need is a better back of house because we have all the ideas. The ideas are no problem. It's the functional computer talking to itself. I guess I don't even know what it would do to do the results, but we need someone to write that. And for that, it takes money. Totally.

Nicole: Absolutely.

Absolutely. So hopefully those resources... We're figuring that out. Yeah, hopefully those resources will come to you. You know, like, cause like you said, like, people are hungry. The energy is there. You know, it, it's, it's coming. Yes. Well, I will ask you then the closing question I ask all of my guests on the podcast.

Which is, what is one thing that you wish other people knew was more normal?

Dr. Elisabeth Sheff: I guess feeling like you don't know what you're doing. You know, I think a lot of people, I certainly, as a child, thought the adults around me, like, had a plan. I had no idea how completely lost everyone was, and, you know, I'm in middle age now and I still have no clue what I'm doing.

I have children in their 20s. You know, and they, I don't know if they think I have a clue. I've been pretty clear with that. I never, I've had very little pretense with them over their lives. So I think they're abundantly aware of I'm doing the best I can. I'm trying to, you know, like meet their needs and be a good mom, but I don't know what's going on, you know.

So I think maybe this idea that everybody's like on a track or has a plan or has this kind of. perfect sense of what to do next or how to manage things, I think is not real. I think a lot of us are very confused and doing the very best we can and sometimes we screw it up and sometimes we find things that we didn't expect and go off on a route that we really did not see coming.

But to kind of give yourself a break and the people around you a break for them.

Nicole: Absolutely. We're all trying to like, sit in that space of honoring that people are doing their best, even when their best is harmful. Like, I like to think that people are trying to do their best. Best. Maybe that's the therapy lens side, right?

Coming into this. Um, that doesn't mean you let all those people get close to you. Let's be very clear, but seeing it through that lens, at least gives like some more empathy for the fact that, yeah, we are all unpacking, growing, learning each day and trying to figure that out. And. I don't know, at least for me these days, like, I even see that with a sense of joy.

Like, I'm like, I'm sitting in this space where, like, I have been following my heart with various different things, which is, you know, and I, and I'm fucking loud about how I feel about things, and that gets me in trouble, you know, like a good feminist should. Making trouble. I know, right? I know. Um, and like, following that has led me down such paths that I would've, I could've never.

In a million years thought that I would be in, do you know what I mean? Like there was no, no part of me that could have dreamed that. Wow. Like what expansion is possible? Like there is like, if that's where I'm at now, and I continue to follow that and explore that, like there is going to be some like big mysterious place that I'm going to end up at that.

I have no idea, but like. how beautiful it's going to be once I get there and like kind of like getting into the mystery of of the future and what's going to unravel it's

Dr. Elisabeth Sheff: juicy juicy and it can be scary too to not know what you're doing can be Anxiety provoking. You and Kierkegaard nailed it.

Nicole: And there we come back again to the juiciness and fear and the how close, you know, fear and joy are really right there, aren't they?

Woo! Well, it was such a pleasure to chat with you. Where can people find The Bonding Project? All of your sort of stuff, plug away.

Dr. Elisabeth Sheff: Um, so you can find The Bonding Project at bondingproject. com. You can find my work at Elisabethchef. com, and that's E L I S A B E T H S H E F F dot com. You can also find my blogs on psychology today.

At the title of my first book, which I have forgotten in the book, the polyamorous next door. What was that book? Yeah. The polyamorous next door is the name of my blog on psychology today.

Nicole: Great, great, great, great. I'll have all that linked below so people can just go directly into the show notes and find all of your stuff.

Yeah. Thank you for coming onto the podcast today and sharing your expertise. Thanks for

Dr. Elisabeth Sheff: hosting me. It was an interesting conversation.

Nicole: Thanks. If you enjoyed today's episode, then leave us a 5 star review wherever you listen to your podcast. And head on over to ModernAnarchyPodcast. com to get resources and learn more about all the things we talked about on today's episode.

I want to thank you for tuning in, and I will see you all next week.