Sex Gets Real 134: Mike Domitrz on creating a culture of consent and respect

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One of the perks of my job is getting a chance to read a lot of books about sex, sexuality, kink, and relationships. Some are terrific, some are OK, but it’s always fun to learn new things and take on new perspectives.

I recently had a chance to read Mike Domitrz’s new book, “Can I Kiss You?” and one of the things that most delighted me was the fact that the book is simple enough for teens to understand it but deep enough to be relevant for folks who have been married for 3 decades – all while being entirely gender neutral.

So, this week, Mike and I had a lovely talk about consent, respect, rape, sexual assault, dating, hook-ups, why married folks in 40 year marriages need consent as much as teens dating for the first time, and we even roll around in Donald Trump and Rush Limbaugh.

Mike’s examples are approachable and realistic – it’s clear he has dedicated his life to rewriting the rules we have about dating and consent. And while I have had several consent experts on the show over the years, I have a feeling Mike’s approach and perspective will really hit home for a lot of you.

ESPECIALLY the parts about interpreting body language incorrectly.

I hope you enjoy listening as much as I enjoyed recording this practical and critical interview.

Follow Dawn on Instagram.

In this episode, Mike Domitrz and I talk about:

• Mike’s decision to make the entire book gender-neutral, free of pronouns, and all of the names don’t indicate gender in any way. The inclusion is wonderful.
• The importance of teaching consent and the concept “that could be me” so that people can see themselves in the examples and situations – both the dating situations and the violation situations, so that we all see how easy it is to cross a boundary.
• We have a disconnect in how we view consent, drinking, and sex. Folks who have been married for 30 years using alcohol to have sex is completely acceptable and joked about, but when it’s an 18 year old, we suddenly have a problem. The behavior is still about consent, so how do we widen the conversation?
• What if you’ve been married for 20 years and you suddenly realize you don’t like the way sex is expected of you or used as a weapon? How do you start that conversation at home? Mike has a powerful question he asks audiences on that very topic.
• It’s so easy to misunderstand body language because we project our wants and fears onto the person or people we are observing – which creates a huge disconnect. Mike has some rad resources for parents around how to start challenging that pattern in how you relate to your kids.
• There is a section of Mike’s book that I adored because it explained in a HUGE way why some folks read neutral body language as a come on or as flirting, and it was such an a-ha moment.
• Hearing Mike talk about blaming people for their body language instead of blaming ourselves for projecting and mis-reading the signals is massive. ALL THE PEOPLE need to hear this.
• I assumed that a confident person would not have as much bias in reading body language and social cues as an insecure person, but Mike corrected me. Both have bias and both will misinterpret a message. There’s a key difference, though, that I found fascinating.
• Mike talks about how critical it is to understand your own privilege and the potential power dynamics at play whenever you approach someone or are navigating consent situations. YES.
• How do you navigate consent and a true “yes” in a one night stand? Mike has some serious truth bombs for us on this one.
• The myths we’ve been told about rejection and going for it versus asking first. Sexual maturity means being comfortable using language around sexuality and sexual situations – our rejection avoidance keeps us sexually immature.
• We need to teach people to not only say no, but also how to say yes to what they want.
• Trump and Rush Limbaugh. We go there, along with the Stanford Brock Turner case. As terrible as all of this is, we are finally seeing outrage and media coverage calling it what it is.
• The slippery slope of trying to convince a partner to get in the mood just because we’re horny. Mike turns it around into an example that is powerfully eye opening.
• Pity kisses, pity dates, and pity sex – please don’t do this. It’s awful. For both/all parties.
• Something that often gets overlooked is that we tell people a ‘no’ doesn’t define them, but then we turn around and celebrate a yes as if it defines our worth or our sexual success. The truth is we are not defined by either a yes or a no. Such powerful stuff.

Resources from this episode

Mike’s book, “Can I Kiss You?”

Trevor Noah’s piece on Comedy Central on locker room talk

About Mike Domitrz

Mike Domitrz is known for the impact his programs, trainings, and publications have made across the world for parents, teenagers, families, educational institutions, the US military, and the media. You may have seen him as the featured expert on Dateline NBC’s “My Kid Would Never Do That.”

Today, Mike is one of the leading experts for transforming our sexual culture to one being built on consent and respect – discussing sexual decision-making, asking first, healthy relationships, bystander intervention, and supporting survivors of sexual assault. As the brother of a rape survivor, Mike’s mission is personal.

His ability to share powerful emotional moments (both serious and hilariously funny) while giving readers and audiences realistic “How To” SKILLS to implement in their lives is what separates Mike’s message from other experts and authors. Mike is an author with an unique combination of Provocateur and Advocate who captivates readers throughout his books.

You can join the conversation to create a culture of consent and respect at datesafeproject.org. You can also stay in touch with Mike on Facebook, Twitter @DateSafeProject, and Snapchap: mdomitrz.

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Episode Transcript

Dawn Serra: Hey, everyone. It’s Dawn Serra with this week’s episode of Sex Gets Real. Joining me this week is a consent expert. I just read his new book, Can I kiss you? So welcome to the show, Mike Domitrz. How are you?

Mike Domitrz: I am fantastic. Thank you for having me on, Dawn.

Dawn Serra: You’re so welcome. Let me tell the listeners a little bit about you and what you do. Then we’re going to roll around in all things consent and communication, and some some current events.

Mike Domitrz: Yes, there’s plenty that there are going to the current events, sadly, sadly.

Dawn Serra: I know. I was so happy to see you had posted some stuff on your Facebook feed about all of the scandals and conversations. So I was like, “Perfect, we can talk about that.”

For those of you who don’t know Mike, Mike Domitrz is one of the leading experts working to transform our sexual culture to one that’s being built on consent and respect. For over two decades, he has educated families, colleges, military, and individuals, all about consent, respect, and dating. His new book Can I kiss you? is inclusive and great for all ages and genders, sexual orientations, and socio-economic backgrounds, which was something I was so thrilled to see when I opened the book. All the names are gender neutral or as close as you can get, and there’s zero pronouns in the book for the most part. So I really love that because I feel like that’s one place where writers and educators go wrong. I’d love to start there with you, Mike, of what made you decide to make Can I kiss you? gender neutral and inclusive to all genders?

Mike Domitrz: It was pretty easy because what happened was we do the Can I Kiss You? program on university campuses, schools, military installations for organizations. They were highly inclusive and all the names they use are gender neutral. So the first book I ever wrote was, May I Kiss You? At the beginning of the book, we say, the names may imply gender. Imagine it being yourself and I realized the book – that book is too far behind the time. At the time, it came out in 2003. I’m like, “I don’t want that. I don’t want that representation. It’s not what we do. It’s not how you bring people into a conversation by saying, ‘Oh, just switches if it was you.’” We wanted to paint people – read in a way that was them. That they could say, “Okay, that’s me”, or “Someone I know”, without having to play a mind game of, “It says Michelle and Mike, but that sounds heterosexual, but I’m not.” 

I didn’t want them playing that mind game to have to feel included in the conversation. I want them to read it and feel like, “Oh, that could be me,” or “Oh, that could be my friend or my family member.” So that everybody could be part of the conversation. Because this is happening to everybody of all genders, all identities, all orientations. We wanted the book to bring that in right from the start and continue that throughout.

Dawn Serra: I’m so glad to hear you say the words, “That could be me.” I know I’ve had Karen BK Chan on the show who is a sex educator, based out of Toronto and she does a lot of work around consent by bringing in non-sexual social experiments and the ways that we pressure people to do things they don’t want to do like dance or have that drink; and how those behaviors make it so much easier to do the same thing when we’re talking about kissing or getting naked. It’s so hard to get people to understand the importance of consent conversations and communication when we vilify the people – when we vilify violating somebody’s consent, or when we vilify not asking, so that we can say, “Those are the bad people and I would never do that.” Then we feel like we’re not part of the problem, so we don’t have to examine our own actions.

Mike Domitrz: Correct. Most of our culture likes to do that. They like to say, “I’m not a rapist, so I don’t need to have this conversation.” So what they do is they use the vilification as a reason they don’t even need to engage at all. That’s really unhealthy and dangerous. One of the things that we love in our work is that we do get to work with audiences of all relationship statuses, of all ages, socio-economic, so I could be speaking one day to a sixth grader, but the next day I can be speaking to a 55 year old military leader. They might come in and go, “Hey, I’m not at bars. Why do I need to have this conversation about alcohol and sex? I’ve been married 30 years.” 

An example I use is, “Alright, you’re in the backyard with a bunch of friends. You’re all couples and you’re having a cookout, and there’s a lot of drinking going on. Your partner comes up to you in front of your friends and is getting all handsy and flirtatious with you, and your partner walks away, and they’ve been drinking a lot. What do all your friends say to you?” Everybody in every audience knows the answer to that. They’re like, “Somebody, if not everybody, is going to say ‘You’re getting laid tonight,’ or ‘You’re getting some tonight.’” I go, “Which pretty much implied that if your partner is sober, you have no chance.” But because they’re drunk, you have a chance. Audiences start laughing at this going, “Oh my gosh, that’s so true.” We just described people been married 30 years, intentionally using alcohol to have sex. The same thing you’re yelling at 18 year olds not to do – you’re doing in your marriage. And you’re saying you don’t need to be part of the conversation. So that’s how we have to look at this – how are we all part of this? Where is this showing up in very complicated, subtle ways, sometimes at all levels, relationships, all ages, socioeconomic orientation, identity – all of this – gender? How does it all play a part in my life? How do I relate?

Dawn Serra: Yeah, I have talked to so many people who struggle inside of their marriages because our culture tells us that there’s this assumption that when you’re married, you automatically have access to sex. There’s this cultural story that it’s okay to guilt our spouses into sex or to withhold sex, and to use our bodies as either weapons or as something to use. Because marriage and being in long term relationships automatically transfers those rights. It can be really challenging to start trying to talk to people about if you’ve been married for 20 or 30 years, and you’re starting to realize, “I don’t really like these dynamics.” Having conversations around that can be really intimidating.

Mike Domitrz: Oh, it’s incredible. We’ll be towards the end of our program, so we wait till we have a comfortable – very comfortable atmosphere with an audience when we share the following question to go home and ask your partner. Before I tell you the question, I’m going to tell you that people – when I say it, you see half the room go, “Oh, that would be awesome,” which means they’re not using it. Because they say, “That would be awesome.” Not, “That is awesome. I already do that.” And you see the other half of the room go, “Oh my gosh, I don’t know if I could do that.” Here’s the simplicity of the question. Look your partner in the eyes and say, “What would you love for me to do in bed for you tonight?” Half the room was like, “Oh, my gosh, that would be great.” The other half is going, “What? What are you saying? I can’t talk that way to my partner.” “Wait, how long have you been married?” “30 years, but we don’t talk that way.” Do you see the problem? 

Speaking out loud in front of 500 people, they actually hear themselves. They’re like, “Well, I just…” And they start to explain why. We were never taught that before or you were taught that might be uncomfortable. Yes, you should be able to have a voice and yes, it should be comfortable. So how do you start that conversation? Go home tonight, work with your partner on being able to have these conversations. And they report back. They’ve been married 30 years and they’ve never had that conversation. It changes their intimacy forever when they start having those conversations. They’re like, “Why did it take 30 years for me to have this conversation? Why didn’t I learn this at 18 years old how to do this with my partner? Or even at 16, so that if I was even, where it be kissing or more advanced intimacy, I had a voice.” That becomes that much more important.

Dawn Serra: Yeah. One of my favorite parts of your book is, at the end of each chapter, you have links so that students can go find things, parents, and teachers. I went, and I specifically looked at the parent link for each of the chapters. I thought it was so powerful that you were giving parents an opportunity to not only reflect on the messages that they’re modeling as parents, but also ways to have these conversations with young kids. One of my favorite things that you had was when you were talking about how easy it is to misunderstand body language because we have this tendency to project what we want it to mean, instead of actually understanding what it does mean. You are asking parents, if you’re upset, frustrated or disappointed by your child and you see your child giving a “look”, do you assume what your child’s body language means or do you inquire with sincere interest? 

Mike Domitrz: That is huge. 

Dawn Serra: I thought that was fascinating.

Mike Domitrz: It’s hard to do because our natural reaction wants to say “We know what they’re saying,” even though we don’t. I’m a parent so I come from this from the perspective of “Been there.” I’m not just telling parents, “Here’s what you should do,” even though I never had to live it. So I do get that this is difficult, but we do this with our children. We do this with our partners. They roll their eyes, and we think, “Oh my gosh, how dare you. You’re disrespecting me. You’re acting like what I just said doesn’t matter or it doesn’t have any credibility.” They could be rolling their eyes, because they can’t believe they actually didn’t know that. Like, “Oh my gosh, why didn’t I think of that before?” When you have that same thought go through your head, your eyes appear to have the same roll eye look as, “I can’t believe you just said that to me, you idiot.” That exact same look can be, “Yeah, duh.” A duh look. But the “duh” could be, “Duh, mom or dad, I know that.” But it could be “Duh. Why didn’t I do that? Duh.” Am I clarifying?

What we’ll say with the audience all the time is watch body language, never rely on it. Confirm with words, confirm with words. So if you think your child’s doing something to disrespect you, confirm with words. “Hey, I noticed you gave this look. Have I upset you? Have I made this uncomfortable? Did that feel like a lecture at that point? Was something else going on that I’m misreading? Ask, “What’s happening here? I don’t want to assume.”

Dawn Serra: So I want to touch on the confirm with words piece a little bit. Actually, I’m going to circle back to it. I’m going to start with something first, just so listeners can follow along. So in the book, I thought one of the most powerful sections was where you said, “When we interpret body language, we project our hopes and wants. We see what we want to see, not what they want us to see. Then we look for things that confirm this projection, so that we’re super biased when we’re reading body language, and the communication from someone that we want something from or that we find attractive.” I thought that was such a succinct and powerful way of explaining why if you’re out at a bar, and you are smiling at the room, one person might take that as like, “Oh yeah, they totally want me,” and how that can lead to really confusing interactions because you want that person. So, of course, if they smile in your direction, you want to believe they’re smiling at you?.

Mike Domitrz: Yes. That happens all the time. Then people will blame the person who was smiling instead of the person with the, “I know what I want, and I’m the one interpreting the smile.” That’s the person who made the mistake. It was the assumption they made by a person. What you describe happens all the time. Imagine you’re sitting among a bunch of your friends. One of your friends goes, “Hey, that person over there is checking me out..” You all look and you’re like, “No, they’re not they’re checking out the person five feet behind you, you idiot.” But everybody’s been in that moment where that’s happened. But we all want to believe that, right? “Hey, that’s the person I’m noticing. They’re noticing me, right?” How many times have we– This is the example I’ll give – how many times we saw somebody waving our way, and we still want to believe we’re being acknowledged because that feels good. We wave back, to realize they’re not waving at us and this is extremely awkward or we’re half pulling our hand back down because we don’t want to look like an idiot. We’ve all done that, right? 

It’s because we want to believe we’re being acknowledged. It feels good, even if it’s a totally nonchalant situation of somebody waving as you’re walking down the street. We want to believe somebody notices us, that somebody knows us.

Dawn Serra: I’m going to… You talk shortly after this in the book about how important it is for us to get really clear, not only our values, but all the things that make us valuable, all the things that we do that prove we’re a good and valuable and worthy person. Because obviously, the more confidence and the more self awareness we have, then the less we’re going to rely on those external validators to make our choices in dating and meeting people. I feel like the people – for instance, a lot of listeners go to dungeons and play parties. And I’ve had the experience where I’ve been at a dungeon and I’ve seen a lone individual who every single person that makes eye contact with them, they immediately go up and feel like, “Oh, this person wanted me to approach them.” You see them doing it over and over again. I feel like it’s because that person is feeling so insecure and so unsure of themselves and wants something so badly, that they are completely misinterpreting all of the signs from everybody in the room because they need someone to validate them. Versus the confident person who is able to, my guess, is read all of those cues with a little bit more honesty because the other people in the room aren’t going to validate their self worth. Do you think that’s true?

Mike Domitrz: I think it’s an interesting one because I think even the confident person, if they see something they want, will also misinterpret because of their bias. The difference might be that the one is misinterpreting all of the messages and the confident person is only misinterpreting the one they want. Maybe the confident person, maybe another way to look at it is the confident person is assessing the room to what fits what they want within the standards they want. There’s the key difference. The other person’s assessing any opportunity, not to the standards they want. So they’re walking in with, “Anything is good.” The other person’s walking in with, “I’m looking for a certain experience.” So they’re going to be more selective to fit the experience they’re seeking, where somebody who’s seeking any experience will take anything. 

It’s like if somebody goes out to a bar and says, “I just want to get laid tonight.” Anything they can see as an opportunity to get laid, they see everything. Theperson who says, “I want mutually amazing sexual experience tonight,” they’re going to see the room very differently. Because they’re only going to be looking for partners who they think are sexually mature, who have confidence. They’re not going to prey on (the) vulnerable. They want both people to have a voice or all people that have a voice. So they see the room differently because of their selectiveness or lack of selectiveness.

Dawn Serra: That brings me back to what you said about confirming with words. So we want to use body language and nonverbal communication as input. But because there’s so many ways to misinterpret or to put our own bias on it, we want to make sure that we confirm with words. I think that’s a really powerful practice. I also think that it can be a dangerous one, if we aren’t also aware of the potential power disparities at play. So if it’s a white man approaching a black woman or a very tall person approaching a very short person, or a very wealthy person approaching somebody who maybe is a little bit younger and doesn’t have means. Would you agree with that? 

Mike Domitrz: So here’s the importance of that element. I’m glad you’re bringing this up, that is so important. That is understanding one’s privilege, understanding the power dynamics in a relationship, and making sure that your partners always have an equal voice. So if there are cultural, socio-economic, demographic – many different demographics that can cause what you’re just referring to there, where there’s a power dynamic, potentially. How are you ensuring that your partner has a voice? There are certain cultures where, for instance, one gender over another gender has an automatic power. If you walk up and say, “Will you do this for me?” Or we’re in a sexual situation, I say, “Would you like to do this?” The person’s going to feel they must say yes, because of a dynamic they’ve been taught. So therefore, even though you’re asking and they’re saying, yes, it’s not what they want to do. That’s not mutually wanted, enthusiastically given. It’s already been taught, they must say yes. 

So that’s why you want to make sure that you establish a sexual relationship with partners, where you’re partner understands you do not want to yes because you asked. You want to yes because they want it. They really wanted it. You don’t even want, “I guess. Yes.” Because people say, “Hey, May I kiss you?” “I guess.” No, that’s not a great – that is not the kind of greenlight you should want to move forward on. What’s that intimacy going to feel like? “I guess.” I want to hear yes or whatever way you want to say it. Some people put other words in there to make it that much more admirable. Yes. Some people like to be more direct, some would call it vulgar. Some would call it blunt – whatever, as long as the two of you like that language, or whatever number of partners are – they like that language. That’s what’s important. So yes, I agree with you.

Mike Domitrz: Establishing what your sexual relationship is and how that can impact all partners, is very important. People say to me, “How does that work and a one night hookup?” You really need to be able to engage in a sexually mature conversation then. If you’re seeing red flags that something’s missing for this to be a sexually mature relationship, notice the red flag and pay attention to it and acknowledge it. Don’t say, “We’ll keep moving and see how that goes.” No, no, acknowledge it. Use words and acknowledge that you’re asking, not because you want them to say yes, because you’d love to experience this if they absolutely truly want this.

Dawn Serra: There’s so much power in what you’re saying. I love it so much. Where I get a little bit discouraged is I feel like the current climate of the way we have raised our kids, especially when we’re talking about heteronormativity and raising boys to be boys and girls to be girls is, is that with toxic masculinity and the way we socialize boys, so much of their value is determined by being able to acquire sexual conquests. I think even as people start unpacking that for themselves a little bit, there’s still those – we are so rejection averse and so failure averse as a culture, that it can be really difficult to retell those stories we have about when someone has the opportunity to say no. Because we’re so afraid of even giving them that opportunity that then all of these really mixed messages and really dangerous situations start happening.

Mike Domitrz: Yeah. It’s why we need to be able to share – you already are getting rejected all the time, but you don’t want to talk about that. So the current system sets you up for horrible rejection. You use it every day. Not you, I mean, our culture – our culture’s current system sets people up for rejection all the time, and then they go, “I’m not going to ask because I’m afraid of rejection.” I go, “Okay, let’s pause that. You just go for it. Your partner doesn’t want it. What could happen?” “They could turn away from me. Is that humiliating?” Absolutely. The person will tell you, “Yes, it is.” “They could push me away. Is that humiliating?” Oh my gosh, yes. “They could slap me or worse. It’s just awful.” Yes. This is your current system, and you’re telling me you don’t want to ask because you’re afraid they could say no. Instead, you’re using a system that could humiliate and be incredibly uncomfortable for both of you. “I never looked at it that way.” Yes, because you’ve been told a story. That’s the key word used there about untelling the stories we’ve been taught.

It’s not that they’re afraid of rejection. It’s that they’ve been taught that right now they don’t face it by just going for it, even though they do. They’re being taught a myth that is so false. They’ve been taught for so long and it’s so false that it’s dangerous and they don’t even recognize it. So what we’re doing is pulling back the curtain and going, “Let’s look at what you’re really doing. Doesn’t make sense.” When you do that, people start to realize the stories they’ve been sold are absolutely false. They’re myths. But we need to first pull back the curtain to say, “Let’s look at what this really looks like.” When you do that people like, “Oh my gosh, that’s so true. I’ve been there, done that. It is messed up.” Then what you do is you get the person going, “But what else can I do?” Then they’re seeking the better solution. 

Mike Domitrz: What’s great about that is then you say, “What if you asked?” Now they’re owning the solution because they recognize the current system is failing them and they want a better option. If you go, “What if you ask?” Then they’ll tell you all the barriers to why they don’t ask. “Okay, let’s get each of those. Are any of them logical?” When you look at all of them, none of them are logical, “I’m afraid it’s going to ruin the moment.” Okay, you’re already ruining the moment. Give it up. Don’t kid yourself. You’re not that smooth. People admit that. They’re like, “That’s true. Yeah, I’m not that smooth.” I don’t care how long you’ve been around. You still can be awkward so that that’s a false one. “I’m afraid they’re going to say no.” Oh, heaven forbid you give them a choice. They’re like, “Oh my gosh, that sounds awful.” Yeah, it does. You just said it. They’re like, “Oh, that’s awful.” Correct. So what are you left with? 

You want an approach that gives them a choice, that you’re both empowered, and it can be fun and sexy. You look someone in the eyes and say, “May I kiss you right now?” If somebody says, “That ruins the moment.” You are talking to a sexually immature person who is not comfortable with language attached to sexual choices. We’re not trying to degrade the person by saying they’re sexually mature. We’re trying to help you recognize this person is not used to having a voice. They don’t feel comfortable having a voice. That’s not to degrade them, that’s to recognize you might need to slow down and help them learn how to have a voice. But if they don’t want that discovery, you might need to move on. Why do you want to be in a relationship with somebody who doesn’t want to have an equal voice with you, or doesn’t want you to have a voice? That’s not healthy. 

Mike Domitrz: So there’s two different people you can run into: the person who recognizes, “I’m not comfortable with that.” “Okay, are you willing to become comfortable with that?” “Nope.’ “Okay, we’re probably not going to be a good fit.” Or the person who, “I’m not comfortable with that, because I just don’t want to engage with you on that level.” “Okay, we’re not a good fit. That’s okay.” The flip side is a person who goes, “I’m not comfortable talking that way.” “What if you could become comfortable, you could have a voice?” “I would love that.” “Okay. I’d love to explore that.” Now you have a win win.

Dawn Serra: Yeah. I think so much of it has to start with… It’s really wonderful when, as adults, we start asking ourselves these questions, so we start challenging ourselves to try new things and to change the way we relate to each other. But it can be so difficult. Once you’ve had 30, 40, 50 years of feeling like you don’t have a voice to suddenly be trying to find your voice and to understand your boundaries. It’s even harder, I think, when you’re a sexual assault survivor, which everyone on the show, have heard my stories and other guests stories about how that even compromises the power of your voice more; and how much more powerful it would be if from the time we were born, the way we were raised was by parents and a community that told all of us there’s value in both our yeses and our nos, so that we’re not only teaching people how to be resilient around nos, but we’re also teaching people that it’s okay to say yes to the stuff you want.

Mike Domitrz: Correct. One of the powerful things that I love is when we do a live show or presentation, at the end, people can win books and t-shirts that we have and all they do is raise their hand and share something you can use from the program. What’s really amazing is sometimes someone will raise their hand and say, “Today, I realized that I can say yes or no without guilt,” which is so powerful. They might be 40 years old., which means they’ve had this restriction on their life, not that they chose, that culture put on them for 20-30 years. What they’re saying is, “I can say yes, without guilt, which means I can own my sexual being without guilt.” Or I can say no without guilt of, “I disappointed somebody and that makes me feel guilty. So I’m not going to say no, I don’t want to disappoint them.” Cultures told me to be a pleaser, to make them happy. I don’t have to do that anymore. I have the right to make this choice. When that happens, that’s like the moment of the light bulb going off, where you’re like, “This is why we do what we do.” Because everybody deserves that choice. 

It’s so important because usually when you say to people, “You deserve to have a choice.” They think to say, “No, no, you deserve to have a choice to say no and you deserve to have a choice to say yes. Say it like you mean it. You want it. How sexy is that for your partner?” “May I?” And you answer “Yes!” They’re like, “Yeah, let’s roll.” I mean, this is what it’s all about.

Dawn Serra: Yeah. I think where people get hung up is the fear that they’ll never find someone who’s going to say that yes, so they better go for it in case that happens.

Mike Domitrz: Right. What that’s about is ego. When ego is driving, ego doesn’t care about partners. Egos about me, ourselves, the one person – and it’s incredibly dangerous. So that’s one thing we have to shift the paradigm in our culture that we work on is switching from a get some attitude to a mutually amazing sexual intimacy attitude. See a get some is about ego: “I get some.” “I’m going to get laid tonight.” “I’m going to get this.” But if you say, “I am seeking mutually consensual sex tonight.” Well, that’s not about just the “I”. As soon as you leave the word I, everything else is about mutual. It’s about the partnerships that exist at that point. That changes how you talk with another human being, how you interact with another human, how you discover sexually with another human being. It changes everything.

Dawn Serra: So while we’re talking about the culture and the messaging that we get, can we talk for a few minutes about Trump and Rush Limbaugh?

Mike Domitrz: Sadly, they are providing examples of why our work, and not just ours in our organization, anybody in this movement work is so important, and how far we have come and how far we still have to go. Where do you want to start?

Dawn Serra: I think one of the things that I’m happy to see coming out of this is for the first time, I’ve actually seen some major media outlets calling it what it is. I think the coverage of the Brock Turner case was so terrible, and the headlines around it were so triggering and disgusting for so many reasons. So to see that in a fairly short period of time, now I know a lot of conservatives are going to be like, “That’s because it’s the liberal media.” But to actually see people like Anderson Cooper on TV saying, “You realize that sexual assault.” 

So I think that that’s one of the kind of good things happening that’s coming out of this. But it makes me sad that it has to come to this in order for us to start having these global conversations. 

Mike Domitrz: Correct. Let’s start at the Stanford case. The Stanford case, as you said, the headlines ran olympic caliber swimmer which made no sense about what was going on in that case, and that was some of the awful that went on in that case. Some of the positive is how outraged the country was at the sentencing. The ironic part of that is that our country was outraged and thinking, “Thank goodness, that doesn’t happen very often.” And that’s where the country was totally incorrect. That kind of situation frequently happens. We did a live Facebook video that night and several people on my Facebook feed were responding survivors, “My rapist got convicted in less time. You saw that over and over again, this was not an anomaly – this happens. 

The positive was the country was upset. The sad part was how clueless we still are as a society of how frequently this is happening, how that was played as a marketing gimmick to try to get him less of a sentence – all of this. So there was positive and there was a lot obviously – there was a ton of negative in coverage. Now of course, when you look at a case, it’s always negative. There’s no positive to somebody being sexually assaulted. But we look at the media coverage and how society reacted. Now we skip forward to Hollywood access video with two people there and it’s interesting, NBC is paying millions to make Billy Bush walk away. And very little is being discussed about that. 

Mike Domitrz: Everybody’s talking about, “Trump made the comments, but Bush sat there almost cheering him on.” As the comments were being made in NBC said, “That’s not acceptable behavior, to cheer on.” NBC is not treating it like locker room talk because that person was being hired to give that interview and represent them. So there are some positives that NBC is taking on that. Let’s start with obviously the video. You have a person, yes, bragging about what anybody would look at, and say is clearly an X such as, “I can do this to a human being,” is sexual assault. Now, Anderson Cooper says – what was amazing about what Anderson Cooper said was, “Do you understand that is sexual assault?” The way he asked it was so powerful and Trump never answered that. Never. Then when he said, “Have you done this?” He tried not to answer it and Anderson Cooper didn’t skip, “Have you done this?” It was three times, I think, he said no. He never acknowledged, though, that even the description of what he said was sexual assault. Had he done that, people might have believed that apology. 

If somebody had come out and said, “I look back on what I said 10 years ago, and I was describing an act of sexual assault that I would never want to engage in. It was ridiculous that I thought that was cool or whatever.” That’s horrific. That’s never what took place. It would not excuse the behavior, but it could at least make you think some learning took place in that time from this experience. But that’s not what took place at all. Because most people in our culture they’ve had an awakening, with few exceptions, there are some exceptions, where people have been raised in a way that is different than everybody else. And they, from a very young age, see these things, all of it for what it is. But most of us aren’t raised that way because our parents didn’t get this education either. It’s not that they intentionally did anything wrong. But usually most of us who “get it” – this topic and consent, at some point, we had an awakening to help us get there that went against culture. So if you haven’t had that, at some point, it’s harder for you to get what’s so wrong about this conversation because nobody’s had this conversation with you. Maybe you come from a place of privilege. You can’t even see what’s going on. And you’re not willing to, that’s the sad part, you’re not willing to. That’s what we’ve seen happen nationally with this case. 

Mike Domitrz: Now, the good side is how many people are calling in sexual assault. That’s the positive side. Trevor Noah’s piece on Comedy Central. If you haven’t seen it, look it up: “Trevor Noah locker room talk Trump.” Look that up. It’s an amazing video where he calls out the difference between locker room talk, which is sex talk, and the difference in sexual assault talk. Most people are not engaging in sexual assault talk. They’re engaging in sex talk, which can be highly inappropriate, offensive, and harmful. But not in the realm of sexual assault talk. So locker room talk that’s inappropriate is, “I could hit that.” Which is violent, it’s harmful. It’s bad. It’s not the idea though, “I’m going to hit that against their will.” You’re not adding that. People in the locker room don’t say, “Oh, I could get that. Even if they didn’t want it, I’ll force it.” Nobody would say that in a locker room. 

I grew up around sports and in the locker room. Nobody – I’ve ever heard said that in my lifetime. I get to work with athletes because of my job. Nowadays, people don’t talk that way. But that’s what that conversation was, because I am who I am, I can do what I want to whoever I want. It was sexual assault talk, and it was horrendous. We need more of our country to say, “Can we dive deeper into this? How did we get to this place?” Instead of only, and I have been wanting to speak out about what Trump said, but we need to take it beyond just the vilification of what took place on a video. We need to say, as a country, “Can we have a deeper conversation here?” That’s what really needs to happen.

Dawn Serra: I totally agree. Using it as a way to say, “If we take this really extreme visible public example and we really look at the behavior that’s being talked about, and then we look at it on a much smaller scale in our own personal lives, there’s lots of ways that we have done either similar things or are doing very similar things inside of our own relationships with people. Being able to actually admit that so that we can say, “Wow, I don’t really want to do that anymore. There’s got to be a better way,” is, I think, where the power is in using a story like this to actually have better conversations about what can we change and how we’re doing things.

Mike Domitrz: Yes. This is a great conversation to have with people ‘cause I know a lot of people go “I do have a really sexually healthy relationship. I would never do anything like this.” Okay. Have you ever been in the mood, really in the mood, and your partner didn’t seem to be in the mood? “Of course,” they’ll tell me, “Okay.” “Did you try to help them get in the mood ever?” “Yeah.” “So your partner wasn’t in the mood and you tried instead of respecting their feelings, their choices – tried to change their mind. Are we now suddenly on the slippery slope?” They’ll be like, “That’s so minor. That’s nowhere near what we’re talking about over here,” which is the extreme behavior, the danger behavior?” “Really? Would you want your child, the moment they say ‘No, I don’t want you to do that,’ to have their partner go ‘You sure? You sure don’t? What if I give you a backrub?’ Would you want your child, when they’re a teenager starting to engage in sexual intimacy, being treated that way?” “Well, of course not.” “The moment they say no, I want to be honored as no. But now because you’ve been with somebody awhile you think they don’t deserve that same level of respect?” 

If we’re all honest, most people’s urges will sometimes put them in a place of ego and not always be that person we’d love ourselves to be. As a culture, because we’ve been taught these roles of, will try to change the mind trying to do that. When you have it at this deep of a level, what happens for people listening often at this point is they get offended, like, “Okay, how dare you imply that I’ve done anything wrong like that?” Or they go, “Oh, my gosh, yeah, I’ve done that.” I guess it is on the slope – Where do I fit in the conversation? What’s interesting is the one who gets angry and goes, “How dare you say I’ve done some wrong,” is – I don’t know who’s listening right now. So if you’re listening and going, “How dare you say I’ve done something wrong.” You’re the one saying you’ve done something wrong, because I don’t know what you’ve done. I don’t even know who you are. I don’t know your face, your name. If you are angry right now, when I say something like that, you’re angry at the mirror. Why does that bother you? Because there’s a possibility I could have done something wrong. We’ve been taught never to do something wrong. What if we were taught when we’ve done something wrong, learn from it, so that you don’t have to be angry about the possibility you’ve done something wrong; instead care about the fact I don’t want to do wrong in the future. I want to do the right thing going forward. I want to learn from this. 

Dawn Serra: Yeah. I think we also have this tendency in our culture because we aren’t very good at having nuanced conversation in the stories we see in media or in the conversations we have when we’re teaching and learning, that we tend to see this black and white of you’re good or you’re bad, you’re moral or evil. So we tend to see a lot of stories like the Stanford case where something really horrific happens. Then, everyone’s like, “Oh, he’s evil. He should never work again. His dad should be thrown in jail.” It’s a very extreme case. But the story that tells is, “If I’ve violated someone’s consent, or if I’ve done something manipulative, then I must be evil. So I can’t let anyone see that. Because all of this shame and fear comes up.”

Mike Domitrz: Yeah. So the reason I do this work is because when I was in college, I received a phone call that– I have three older sisters, the youngest of those older sisters is four years older than me. Her name is Sherry, and I received a phone call that Sherry had been raped. I’m 19 at the time, my sister’s 23. I was absolutely devastated. I was in a place of anger – rage about what I want to do to this rapist, this assailant, this criminal. Over time what would happen is this anger wasn’t getting me anywhere. I heard a speaker speak out about sexual assault. Now this was back in 1991, when you didn’t have these conversations on college campuses. It was very rare. I thought, “Oh, I could use my voice to do something.” But part of that was me looking in the mirror and going, “Oh my gosh, am I part of this?” When I heard that speaker, I’d look in the mirror and go, “Wait a second. I’m angry because somebody forced themselves on my sister.” Have I even been in the ballpark before? Have I ever been out at a party and went back with somebody and tried to kiss them without asking first? At that point in my life, I could look in the mirror and go, “Yes, I’ve tried to kiss somebody without asking them.” Yes, that’s extremely different than what happened to my sister. But it’s the same concept of “Do you deserve a choice or not or am I going to make you stop me or say no after I’m trying to do it to you?” That was a wake up call that I had of, “Oh my gosh, if I’m really going to be angry about what happened to my sister, we have to look at this conversation about how does this begin at the most beginning levels of sexual intimacy: kiss, hug – all these? Why don’t we give people choices?”

For me, that was a wake up call of, “Alright, how am I going to change this for me? How do I help other people have that opportunity? How do we create this conversation?” That’s where this all began, because of my own – there was guilt. I’ve done something along the lines of assuming I could kiss somebody, so what right do I have to be filled with rage over somebody that assumes they can use power over someone, even though they’re very different versions of how it occurred? It’s the mindset of “You can tell me no or stop me if you don’t want it.” Instead of, “You deserve to have a choice before I do it.”

Dawn Serra: We’ve talked at length on the show about one of the things that pisses me off so much. I’ve gotten so many letters from listeners about the unsolicited dick pic that happens when you’re doing hookup apps, and this mismatch of the people who receive them and how angry they get versus the people who send them and not understanding why it’s a big deal. What you just said giving people the choice is exactly why – if you’re not giving someone the choice to choose for themselves, whether they’re ready to receive a kiss or ready to receive a naked picture or ready to receive touch. Then you’re putting your needs and your desires ahead of this other person’s safety and experience.

Mike Domitrz: Correct. Why not just send them a text? “Hey, do you like to have a little fun with sex or does that turn you off?” Ask! If you’re going to text, I prefer you have the conversation – I mean as a conversation. But if you’re saying – text first before you send the pic. Because if they’re saying, “That totally turns me off.” Why would you send the pic? If your goal is to get this person sexually excited and that turns them off, you’re being an idiot at that point. Why would you do that? I’ll give you an example in my own case. 

So certain emojis are being used to represent certain genitalia, certain sexual acts instead of the actual – the old dick pic or genitalia pic – whatever it is. So I had told my wife about this, and she’s like, “Yeah, yeah. That’s not, in any way, interesting to me. Just send me a smiley face.” 

Dawn Serra: I don’t want an eggplant. 

Mike Domitrz: Right, exactly. That’s right. She’s like, “Seriously?” I think that was her response when I first showed her this. She’s like, “Seriously?” Okay, I’m not going to do that because that’s not going to help if we’re trying to set a sexy atmosphere here. That’s the crazy part about it, right? People are doing things their partner doesn’t like and their intention is to create an atmosphere where the partner wants to engage intimately with them. Well, then find out what your partner likes to engage intimately with. Are you two on the same page? Are you both comfortable with it? Maybe your partner likes something you’re not comfortable with. And you’re going to go, “I’m not comfortable with that.” That’s okay. Because a lot of people are afraid.We sort of hinted this earlier, but there’s a lot of people out there who, for many reasons, are afraid to say no, for a multitude of reasons. That idea of saying no is scary. 

Have you had the conversation that empowers each other to say no? That, “Thanks for asking it, but that’s not something I’m comfortable with or I want to do or not right now, or I only like to do that once in a million on a special occasion. But these things I love to do. I really love these things frequently. But that thing, once in a million. Or that thing over there. Don’t ever ask me to do that. In fact, if you do, I know you don’t respect me, because I told you I’m not comfortable with that at all. And if I ever change my mind, I’ll tell you. You’ll never need to ask. I’ll tell you.”

Dawn Serra: One of the things that I thought was really interesting in Can I Kiss You? was you were talking about saying yes to a pity date, or saying yes to a pity kiss. I think also in, in relationships will often do the pity sex because we don’t want to deal with the conversation, and the pouting, and the passive aggressive bullshit. So instead, it’s like , “Fine, let’s just do this and get it over with.”

Mike Domitrz: What’s funny about that is I use this example from stage that you’re bringing up is, you’ve been with someone 30 years and there are some times that on Thursday night, you have sex, you roll over afterwards, look at each other, like “Why did we just do that?” Whenever I’m saying that people are dying, laughing because they’ve recently done that. When you look up and your partner’s looking at TV, this is not a satisfying moment at all if those things happen to you. But yes, because this idea that we have to, that’s what I have to do. That’s messed up.

Dawn Serra: Yeah, I agree. As uncomfortable as it can be to start learning how to have these conversations, it’s okay to mess it up and be awkward for a little while. I feel like that’s so often – the questions and the emails that I get here in the show, I get tons of questions about sex and fantasies, and telling a partner about kink or wanting to open a marriage, but what they almost all come down to is people are afraid of rejection and humiliation. So they’re trying to find a way to get their partner to be okay with their fantasy or okay with their kink without actually having to have a conversation.

Mike Domitrz: And/or the keyword is that, “I want my partner to be okay with it.” In other words, “I want a yes.” Instead of, “I want to learn how they feel about this.” Those are two very different viewpoints. My viewpoint is, “I’m curious what my partner feels about this. I’m going to want to discover with them how they feel.” If my viewpoint is, “I only want to discuss this if my partner will say yes.” Now it’s a form of how do I get to a yes. Now it’s a sales tactic. It’s sales and marketing. Maybe some coercion, maybe manipulation, because it’s focused on me not being rejected. It’s a focus on me getting a yes versus what my partner thinks about that. That’s a very different conversation. You can make that without ever saying “me”. You could say to your partner, “Hey, you know you hear partners talking about this, whatever this is, what do you think of that?” And know that whatever you answer, I’m okay with however you answer. I’m just curious what you think about that. Because I don’t want you to think I have a preconceived notion. If they’re like, “Here’s what I feel about it.” Okay. Okay, that’s good to know. There was no rejection. It wasn’t about you. It was about how do they feel about that?

Dawn Serra: Yeah. What’s interesting is, I think we also as a culture tend to tie our self-worth to whether or not people reject ideas. That’s also where some of that self-reflection comes in of, let’s say, “I really, really, really want to try going to a dungeon and if I bring up the idea of dungeons to my partner, and they say, ‘No, I’m totally not into that.’” I think that a lot of people have now tied themselves to, “Now my partner’s now rejected me.” And that’s why we need to elevate these conversations and realize there’s such a difference in you, your self, and your values, and what you bring to the table versus these ideas that are separate from you. You might really want the thing but talking about the thing and you as a person are two people separate things.

Mike Domitrz: Yes. This is very Buddhist-Taoism – the idea of detachment. That what we are discussing is not who we are. What we do is not who we are. It’s “I can make a mistake.” This goes back to some of the discussions we had earlier, is, “I can make a mistake. That’s not who I am. That’s a mistake I made.” It’s not, “I can detach my mistake from who I am.” A caring person can make an awful mistake that does not appear to be caring at all. They’re still a caring person who made that mistake. So the mistake does not own them. They do not own the mistake. They’re responsible for it. Yes, but it doesn’t define you. This is true in sexual conversation, too, which is, who I am is not defined by any of this conversation. It does not define me. If my partner says no, it does not define me. If my partner says yes, it does not define me. So if I have partners that always say yes, having sex with me, that doesn’t define who I am sexually. No more than it does a person who always has – people that says no, the person who you are is a person separate from the answers you get. Separate from the times that you make mistakes, and you have successes. If you ride either of those, your self-worth is going to constantly be on a rollercoaster ride that is dangerous, unhealthy. Most of us ride that roller coaster because it’s what we’ve been taught. Did you win or did you lose? You lose, low self-esteem. You won, high self-esteem. But it lasts for what? A day or two, and then you’re searching again to get that self-esteem back. 

Sex is the same way. It’s a rush, and then you seek it again. The only difference is between people when you talk to them, except for asexual obviously that’s different. If someone’s asexual, they might not be seeking. But for those who are seeking, the difference is frequency of what they consider acceptable search. For one person, it’s once a month and another person it’s once a day. That is what ties in their ego and what timeframe they’re working in the rush of the high and the rush of the low.

Dawn Serra: Yes. I’m so glad you mentioned that because I feel like that piece does get overlooked a lot when we’re talking about communication and rejection resilience. It is so important to be able to receive someone else’s no and no, it’s totally about them, and not at all about you. But we sometimes forget that we also tie a lot of value to those yeses, and that we can often see ourselves as being better or more worthy if we’ve had lots of yeses from lots of sexual partners. Instead of seeing that the yeses, and the nos really aren’t about us equally. I love that you brought that up because that I think is something that all of us need to chew on.

Mike Domitrz: I mean, how many of us every time we’re naked in front of a partner want to hear our partner tell us that we’re sexy? Everybody just about, would love to hear the partner go, “Oh, you’re so sexy.” What’s that about? It’s not about our partner. It’s about us thinking that when you say that, that makes me sexy. Versus “I already am. You just happen to say it.” That’s the difference. So I’ll give you a great example. 

Scott Stratten has the show called The UnPodcast. He was talking about the fact that when his book sold, I don’t remember how many books it was – it was a best selling book. Whatever the number was, people went, “Oh, see? Proof. Proof that the book is amazing.” Scott was brilliant when he said, “Actually, the book must have been amazing when I finished writing it because it didn’t change between when I finished writing it and those books sold.” But what do we do? We wait to hear how many books were sold before we said it was amazing. When the book was amazing before a single book was sold – we’re all that amazing book. Unfortunately, we’re waiting to see how many books get sold. Instead of recognizing the books have been written brilliantly, and it’s me.

Dawn Serra: I love that. I feel like that’s the perfect note to end on because now everybody can feel like they’re amazingly written books. Mike I would love for you to share with everybody where they can find you online and how they can stay in touch with all the amazing work that you’re doing.

Mike Domitrz: We’d love to have people join us in the conversation and become even part of the movement if they want. So they can find us at our website, which is we’re with the datesafeproject.org. So datesafeproject – think of it this way: You go on out of date, you want to feel safe and you don’t want to feel like it’s a project. datesafeproject.org – you’ll find everything there. We have a store with the book you’ve been talking about all along here – Can I Kiss You? But we also have posters and DVDs, and we have really fun t-shirts and clothing, and all this stuff that’s on there. People love the underwear. We have some really provocative underwear that’s also fun and consent-driven. It’s really, really wonderful. So they can find all that there. Our Facebook. I know Facebook is an easy way for people to find nowadays. So if you just go to facebook.com/DateSafe – they’ll find us there. Like our page and leave a comment, join the conversation. We’re all about conversation. We’re all about consent.We invite you to become part of the conversation with us. Facebook or directly by going to our website at datesafeproject.org.

Dawn Serra: I will have links to your website and all of your social media on sexgetsreal.com/ep134 for this episode. I want to thank all of our listeners for tuning in. Mike, I want to thank you for coming on the show and being so generous with all of your ideas, and experience in talking about consent.

Mike Domitrz: Thank you for deep diving into this entire discussion, Dawn. You do such a wonderful job in sharing with the world. So thank you.

Dawn Serra: Oh, well, thank you. For everybody listening, if you have any questions or comments, please go to dawnserra.com. You can submit your questions anonymously if you’d like. Of course on Facebook and Twitter at @Dawn_Serra. If you have anything you’d like me to pass along to Mike, be sure to send that over or go visit datesafe on Facebook. This is Dawn Serra, I will talk to you next week. Bye.