Cheating
On this episode Dan and Dawn discuss the topic of cheating, their experience with it from previous marriages and what could be considered “cheating” in a polyamorous relationship. Is cheating on your partner ever justified under certain circumstances? Could these circumstances truly be considered legitimate? Dawn shares a story of a peculiar situation with a surprise twist at the end from when she was growing up. Discover the concept of “courageous honesty” and understand what toll it might take on a relationship.
Restraint without Rope
Ayzad, the author of I Love BDSM, and host of the Explorers of Unusual Sex podcast joins in to enlighten us on the many different ways to restrain your partner without the use of rope, including some very interesting choices like hypnosis and even… plaster casts? His other book, BDSM – A Guide For Explorers was a groundbreaking release which was even adopted as a textbook by several universities and is even considered to be the Bible of BDSM by the fetish community for a very interesting reason. Ayzad also shares his favorite bondage technique and why it drives his partner crazy! Listen to the episode to find out what it is and how to do it to your partner.
Plus…
find out why Dawn chose not to tell her grandma that she is poly-amorous and pagan. And there are so many new kinky dating apps now, but how popular are they in the kink community?
Visit Ayzad’s website: https://ayzad.com/
Follow Ayzad on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ayzad
Follow Ayzad on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ayzad_official
Check out his books: I Love BDSM https://amzn.to/3k15ris and
BDSM: A Guide for Explorers of Extreme Eroticism https://amzn.to/3E5DwWH
transcript
Dan 00:05
This week on Erotic Awakening, non rope restraints, deceptive sex, and real life Instagram.
Dawn 00:13
Welcome to Erotic Awakening, an exploration of all things erotic. If you are offended by adult topics or prohibited by law, we recommend you stop listening right now.
Dan 00:24
The Erotic Awakening podcast is grateful to the support of our patrons who receive ad free, early access to the podcast as well as other perks.
Dawn 00:32
Thank you to our new supporter Wayne.
Dan 00:35
Not Wascally Wayne?
Dawn 00:37
Well, I was thinking Wascally Wayne, but I don’t know Wayne or I don’t think I know Wayne, so he may not be Wascally.
Dan 00:42
But you might know Wayne.
Dawn 00:43
I might know Wayne, so you know what I always did? Oh, hi Dan.
Dan 00:47
Hi Dawn.
Dawn 00:48
I almost decided to try to do the welcome to Erotic Awakening the same way I heard Kevin of Kevin and Katie. He tried to do it this morning at the breakfast table.
Dan 00:58
Yes.
Dawn 00:58
So, and there’s no way I can. My voice is a little high when I do that. And he’s like “Welcome to Erotic Awakening”
Dan 01:06
The professional podcaster voice.
Dawn 01:08
He’s got a very deep bass voice. We may have to get him to do that for us at some point.
Dan 01:13
Just for fun though.
Dawn 01:13
Just for fun.
Dan 01:14
Uh, so today the podcast we are going to speed speaking with Ayzad, from Italy on non rope restraint. Very good conversation for me as somebody who does not do rope.
Dawn 01:23
No, but we’d throw in the cling wrap. And I, I think he talks a little bit about that.
Dan 01:28
He does indeed. He does indeed. Uh, but before we get into that, we’re gonna have a conversation. Uh, it was requested that we talk about this, uh, first say, well, how do you feel about it? And I gave an answer as Dan. And they said, “Oh, well, you should talk about that on the podcast.” And we’re going to do that. And we’re going to see where it goes, and we’ve not planned this out. How are we going to discuss this? Um, what we called it in the opening was deceptive sex, but what we’re are going to talk about is cheating.
Dawn 02:00
Right.
Dan 02:00
And what we mean by that, because again, we’re kinky and we’re poly and we’re all these things. And we have sex with people that are not each other on a regular basis. What we’re going to be talking about tonight in this regard for this conversation is having sex when you have a partner that is not aware that you’re having sex with other people.
Dawn 02:24
Right. So, and, and that is how we’re going to find…
Dan 02:27
You came up with a bunch of other names for it. We were trying to come up with…
Dawn 02:29
Oh I did. Where did that go? So, but first I have a little story about that because you were saying, you know, we wanted to define it. And, um, one of the stories that I had with my youngest son after he had moved out was, um, he asked me if there was ever anything that could happen, that I would have an issue with. So maybe this could be part of our discussion today. And I said cheating. And he said, “Whoa, you guys have other partners.” And I said, yes, but for us, there is a difference between that and knowing about it. And not knowing about it, right? So that’s probably going to be part of our discussion today. But these words that, um, the, the thesauruses has for cheating is, um, let’s put this here, let’s see extra-curricular activities, fast and loose illicit, immoral, moonlighting, speedy. I don’t know why that’s in here and it’s actually cheating under the adulterous adjective. Unfaithful, a two faced two timing and unchaste, uh, playing around, matinee. Don’t ever, ever heard it called matinee hanky panky blah-blah-blah.
Dan 03:48
So the question that was brought to us was, Hey, I guess really regardless of the question that was brought to us, the question that we’re going to talk about is, is it ever okay to cheat on your partner? We’ve had this conversation with people before and you know, a person will say, well, my partner has a different sex drive than me. Well, my partner has a significant illness, right? Um, perhaps they have prostate cancer and they can’t have sex anymore, right? Uh, I’m on the road a lot and I’m a truck driver or, um, you know, whatever. Um, so Dawn, is there ever a legitimate reason where somebody could say, this leads me to cheating on my partner and you’d say, eh, I guess that in that situation, it’s okay.
Dawn 04:40
Um, that is really hard for me to answer because it is simply because I could take the moral high road and go, no, there is absolutely no reason to ever cheat because you are with that partner and you promised in sickness and in health and blah, blah, blah. And, and, uh, yeah, these are the things that…
Dan 05:02
That’s not the question, though. The question is not, is the question is, is it ever okay?
Dawn 05:12
Well, it depends. Okay. So I’ve got a story for you. Okay. And, and, but I don’t consider this cheating. So I don’t know that this is a valid story. When I was growing up, um, my parents had friends that always went out with them that they hung out together. G and G. Okay. I they’ve probably passed at this point, but I don’t particularly want to say their names. So G and G. I was over at what I thought was G and G’s house when, wow, that’s hard for them to be G so he’s G1 she’s G2. G2 went to a back bedroom with some food and she’s like, “Hey, can you come help me out?” And I went to go help her out. She was feeding her husband who was sick in bed. I had no clue she was married. I thought she was married to G1. And then, you know, she, she, so I helped her out and she closed the door like this was absolutely nothing. Went back to G1, gave him a kiss, fixed him some food. And the rest of the adults finished playing poker. He sick in bed, right? So was that cheating? I don’t know. I don’t know if he knew about G one or not. So, um, he couldn’t get out of bed, so I don’t know.
Dan 06:31
Yeah. And I could see, I see where you’re going with that. Right, right. The way where you have these circumstances. But for me, one, I don’t care what you do. We’re not sitting here telling you that this is what you should or should not be doing. I don’t care. Two: from my experience…
Dawn 06:54
but I didn’t want to admit to that.
Dan 06:57
the harm caused by cheating outweighs the benefit you gain by cheating. Now, if you are listening to the Erotic Awakening podcast, then you are aware of both the idea of swinging and the idea of polyamory. And there is where I will, uh, it’s not, uh, where I will say you do not have an illegitimate excuse to cheat anymore because you understand, I’m not saying you don’t just… I’m just gonna keep rolling. If you understand the concepts of swinging and you understand the concepts of open relationships, that there are options to do ethical open relationships, then it becomes your responsibility to go to your partner and express “I want an open ethical relationship” be it swinging or polyamory or whatever it is, right? Because you have the option to have. If you have, I totally dig, you may have needs that your existing partner can not fulfill, especially in a situation if you are in a relationship of, with a particular sex, uh, male or female in this case, and you have a desire to have sex with the other sex. That was probably very confusing using the word sex again.
Dawn 08:37
It might be a little wrong language. Yeah.
Dan 08:40
Yeah. And it’s probably not the appropriate language either. Right. But you’re in a boy girl relationship and you really want to be with other boys. Well, you can’t, there’s nothing that your girl relationship can give you that is equal to being with other boys. Or again, you’re in a situation the other person that doesn’t have a sex drive equal to yours, or they’re asexual, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Many situations where you may feel the desire or the need to be with other people, but not want to leave that person. This is not 1950, where that was, it was either A or B. Nowadays, you’re allowed to have your cake and eat it too, but you have to pay for that cake, which means you have to have a conversation with their existing partner.
Dawn 09:23
The courageous honesty.
Dan 09:24
The courageous honesty, and with the understanding of that might be the cost might be that partner saying “That’s unacceptable to me, we’re not going to be together anymore.” It’s unfortunate and maybe there are situations where that’s not the correct thing to do. You know? I mean, we could really get into some very specific situations, right? If I have, like, for example, you chose not to tell, this is not related directly. You chose not to tell your grandma that you were poly-amorous.
Dawn 10:03
Right.
Dan 10:04
Because, or for that, hell, you decided not to tell grandma you’re a pagan because grandma’s old getting ready to die and why should they have to suffer through that? Right? What benefit did it give? So you might say, oh, well, what, in that situation where my partner’s only got six months to live, I’m supposed to tell him I need… you know what, I’m not talking, we’re not talking about the 2% situations. And even then, right. We’d have, I’d really have to sit back and say, but there’s no right or wrong that’s, you know, this, um, legitimate, you know, like always, you know, maybe there’s some gray area there. I’m stumbling a little bit with that, but overall, and I’m going to say again, right? This is coming from my experience as somebody who cheated on their spouse, it was more, it was caused more harm than needed. It would have caused less harm for me to walk up to that spouse at the time and say, you know what, I’m going to start banging this other woman. We need to look at that. We need to confront that. Or we can have a big fucking argument and break up, but to give them that option. Right? That’s my view.
Dawn 11:22
I think that’s why I’m hemming and hawing, right? And trying to find, um, a time that it would be okay simply because I don’t want to look at what I’ve done. Right? So. Honestly, and truly, now that I know about the kink world, now that I know about the poly world, now that I know about the swinging world, you know, ethical non-monogamy and all that type of stuff.
And now that I know that it just takes some courage, um, I don’t believe in cheating, right? So when my kid asked me, you know, what would make you break up with Dan? There’s only two things. And one of those is cheating. Right? We are a team, we are supposed to meet. We’re supposed to talk about the, the, the unmentionables, right. We’re supposed to be doing like that. And we’re in this together. So, you know, cheating for me, there’s no reason to cheat. And I’ve been cheated on in a damn polyamory relationship. What the hell is that about? Oh my God. So yes, but I have also cheated on a past spouse and been cheated on by said past spouse, right? That is absolutely more harmful. At that point I am not in a consensual relationship because they don’t have all the information to make a choice. So to me, it then boils down to consensuality.
Dan 12:49
Yeah. And that’s one of the big things for you and I is part of the kink community is that we and the swinger community as well, right, we were taught the value of consent. Um, you know, we, we used to have this argument about whether we’re kinky or were perverted, right? To me as long as there’s a level of consent with everybody involved it’s good fun kink, right? So I don’t know. I don’t want to delay with that anymore. And again, right, everybody’s got their own journey that they’re walking. I don’t know everybody’s situation, but I can tell you all I’m saying is my experience is that both either from being cheated on and from cheating on a spouse, that that was the less, that seemed to be the easier path and it ends up, well, you know what, building your foundation out of, um, straw instead of brick is an easier path too, but it’s not necessarily the better path.
Dawn 14:03
So, and it’s probably not what some people may have wanted to hear. You know, they may have wanted an endorsement that Dan and Dawn find cheating okay.
Dan 14:13
And they might’ve wanted us to be a lot more hardcore about it, right?
Dawn 14:16
Yeah.
Dan 14:16
Uh, tell us what you think about it. Head over to our Discord channel, where you can get in on the conversation and tell us that we’re full of shit. Or that you totally agree, or that you have some other view that we hadn’t thought about.
Dawn 14:31
And, you know, just remember that it’s something that you have to live with your decisions. Not that Dan and Dawn have to live with. Right? We don’t have to live with your decisions. You do. So it’s up to you.
Dan 14:42
There you go.
Dawn 14:43
Does that make sense? Okay.
Dan 14:44
Uh, if you would like to get a hold of us and tell us that we’re full of shit, there’s a variety of ways you can do that. But, those well, fuck. I started that sentence now and I’m on the wrong spot on the podcast notes. Side note, one of the things that we want to end the podcast with now, one of the things we’ve added in is if you want to reach out to us, we love interaction. Feel free to toss us an email.
Dawn 15:08
We’ve got, um, Instagram at eroticawakening. We have Twitter. I think everything is either eroticawakening or Dan and dawn. So we can be found on Twitter, Instagram, Discord. There are so many more places. Why can’t I think of them? So many, many places. And if you can’t find us somewhere, let us know. You can directly send us an email at dananddawn@eroticawakening.com .
Dan 15:35
Yep. So, uh, we’ll get into that interview on the non rope restraint, but first, um, well, you might want to keep up, you might want to know when we’re going to be presenting our new classes, like, um, teen polyamory, or self-confidence is sexy. You can do that by keeping up with all of our events, books, news discounts, all that stuff via the Erotic Awakening Newsletter.
Dawn 16:05
So, and, um, people got their EA shout out by signing up for the newsletter. Um, Heather in Arizona,
Dan 16:13
Marley in Cincinnati.
Dawn 16:15
I think we know this Marley maybe, but I’m not sure. Kathy in Missouri.
Dan 16:21
Head over to eroticawakening.com and subscribe today. Wow. We both stopped talking like that was the end of the show, but it’s not.
Dawn 16:34
As much as we talk..
Dan 16:36
Yes. I got to mention real quickly. We were playing, um, an online board game with some friends of ours and I got spanked by Peachy. That’s all I’ve got to say about that. Oh, other than that, Dawn, I want to mention really quickly. I don’t know if you’re aware of this. If you go out to the, uh, you and I have, uh, Android phones, not the iPhone. I don’t know about iPhones. If you head out there on your Google phone, to the play store and type in kinky, do you know what pops up?
Dawn 17:06
No.
Dan 17:07
Dating apps, dating apps, dating apps, there are so many kinky dating apps.
Dawn 17:12
Holy cow, you know what? That’s kind of cool in one way and kind of frustrating in another, because if there’s so many kinky dating apps, then there’s like five people on each one, the same thing with the poly apps. Right? You know, there’s like five on each one. So it’s great that there’s lots of choices and also frustrating because it’s hard to find people. So, no, I didn’t know that the, um, I haven’t been on a kinky dating app in a while. No, actually I am on one. I need to go check it out. Isn’t it called Dating Dinky? Dating Kinky? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dan 17:51
So other than that’s really quickly. I got food on boobs. Actually Sasquatch sent me, um, lollipops covering nipples.
Dawn 18:03
Nice!
Dan 18:04
That counts 100% as far as I’m concerned.
Dawn 18:07
You got food on pussy too.
Dan 18:09
Oh my gosh. That was so cool. You’re just going to have to go over to the Discord channel.
Dawn 18:16
They can only see it if they’re a Patron.
Dan 18:19
That’s a good point. That’s actually, um, not a well thought out subtle suggestion that you go become a Patron that we just wandered into that one. Yeah. I can’t really explain it. A pussy sandwich. You’ll have to go see it for yourself. Awesome. And other than that, um, and Sam and Sam wall sent you something.
Dawn 18:42
And Sam Wall sent, he keeps sending me TikTok thingies. So I like them. So there TikToks about, uh, what was the last one? The cuttlefish? A cuttlefish and an octopus and all kinds of stuff. So he is on the TikTok. We should get on the TikTok. That’s one of those things that if you’d like to see us on some sort of media, social media, like TikTok or something, let us know, we’ll figure out how to do it.
Dan 19:07
We’ll figure it out. We’re not that wise. I tried to do a Tiki Tok the other day, like a couple of months ago.
Dawn 19:17
A Ticky Tok?
Dan 19:18
Fuck that. Uh, other than that we have, though, figured out Instagram, at least as far as we’re concerned, Instagram for us is the real life type stuff. Our RV life. Um…
Dawn 19:29
The dog, of course, where I go triking, sometimes food. Ooh, I bet you, we have an awesome picture of the raclette that we did with Kevin and Katie yesterday. A raclette grill. You know what we need to put on there is, I’m supposed to be taking sexy pictures of me in each state. We need to put that on there.
Dan 19:50
That is so not what our Instagram’s about, we don’t have that kinky hot Instagram account or a fans only we can do a fans only.
Dawn 19:58
That’s a sort of media thing that we could. Ooh, what time is it? I’d be my only subscriber, I’d go watch myself.
Dan 20:13
So as listeners of the podcast have figured out by now, I am terrible with rope. Not just Shibari, but any kind of rope whatsoever. And unfortunately I was in the Navy for a while. I’m supposed to be good at knots and stuff, but that never did happen. Fortunately for me, we have the host of the Explorers of Unusual Sex and author of, I Love BDSM on the show tonight. Ayzad, thanks for joining the show.
Ayzad 20:40
Thank you.
Dan 20:42
And my understanding is that you have some familiarity with restraints other than rope.
Ayzad 20:47
Oh yeah. I happened to, yes.
Dan 20:50
So what would, what’s the first thing that comes to mind for restraints that are not rope?
Ayzad 20:55
Oh, well, lots of stuff actually. Uh, you have, uh, chains, leather, uh, hypnosis, uh, clothes, scarfs, metal, uh, plaster casts, uh, your name it.
Dan 21:10
Now plaster cast sounds a little intense and a little complicated. We’ll leave that alone for a moment though, but it seems like scarfs. And one of the things you mentioned is scarfs. It seems like that seems to be kind of a erotic movie default is the silk scarfs and that type of stuff.
Ayzad 21:28
No, they’re very fashionable, very spectacular and generally not done as you see in the movies, because if you use silk scarves, eh, they tend to either slip off or, uh, tighten too much and then you end up having to cut them so way too expensive for my taste.
Dan 21:51
Sure. What kind of scarfs then do you recommend?
Ayzad 21:55
Well, pretty much any other material, uh, anything not elastic, because again, they tend to tighten up too much and to maybe cut off circulation as well. Um, you know, the very point of non rope bondage is to use good sense and fantasy and, and think of the kind of scene you’re trying to create before, uh, fixating onto some specific fetishistic object. Uh, sometimes you want to use a very coarse, um, fabric. Sometimes you want to use very soft, uh, or thin or thick or whatever. It really depends on what you’re trying to create.
Dan 22:41
And that’s a great call-out because normally, and one of the advantages I suppose, of using restraints other than rope is that you have a lot of opportunities for a lot of different sensations like you mentioned, you might go for soft, but you might also go for coarse.
Ayzad 22:59
Absolutely. Or for relentless, uh, have you ever tried to using chains for example, which by the way, I don’t think are a very good medium, but, uh, you can’t go any harder of a metal after all.
Dan 23:13
Absolutely. Now for somebody who is just getting started in restraints and they don’t want, for whatever reason, maybe they’re not into rope or maybe they just haven’t figured out.
Maybe they’re afraid of rope because of all these Shabari master types running around, but they want to some basic restraints. Where’s a good place to start?
Ayzad 23:31
Oh, well, um, I can cut to the chase and tell you my own big secret about bondage. Uh, the one thing I really love to do is to, uh, use thin sewing thread, the thinnest I can find and, uh, just to make a loop around the wrists or whatever of the body parts and just then lean in to the ear of my submissive and say, don’t you try breaking it. And that’s, I believe it is far more erotic and the interesting as a dynamic than piling up lots of stuff on the poor girl’s body.
Dan 24:17
Very cool. And actually I can resonate with that because I’ve done, um, similar things with yarn where I’ll make a yarn collar and I’ll say, you can take, you know, it’s yarn, you can break it at any moment, but I don’t think you will. And then you continue on from there.
Ayzad 24:35
Exactly. Exactly. After all the point is a dynamic, uh, the dynamics between the, uh, the partners, isn’t it? Uh, I remember, I believe it was Midori who said this, uh, said, uh, that, uh, Kinbaku guys are in love with their ropes and they only tie up people because they have to put it somewhere. But the real point, I believe it is always the, the relationship between the persons. Uh, so, uh, anything that connects you is just fine.
Dan 25:10
Now, what would you recommend if somebody said, “Hey, I want to do a scene. I want to do a tickling scene, right. And when you tickle me, I’m going to squirm and do my best to get away, but I don’t want to be able to get away.” What would you use as a restraint in that situation?
Ayzad 25:27
Again, it’s a matter of tastes, but a one very simple solution for example, is to use uh, and here my English is failing. Uh, I, I’m not a native speaker as you know, but, uh, uh, saran wrap, is that the word? The plastic film? Right. Uh, some saran wrap, you have it in your home. I’m pretty sure, but in the, maybe it doesn’t look very cool, but it is a very intense as a sensation and it leads to rather interesting situations. And by the way, but you can also buy this kind of clingfilm in different colors so it can get rather nice to see as well.
Dan 26:12
Very cool. Uh, and I have, I’ve got some in my toy bag, so I’ve certainly agree with that one.
Anything that you see people use for restraints that you wouldn’t recommend?
Ayzad 26:23
Oh, well then what can I start? Um, sex, uh, sex shops, um, handcuffs for example, are usually made in little more than tin and they tend to, to bend and to break and to pinch the skin and very generally awful of our example. And, uh, you don’t want to use any kind of rope that you don’t really know how to use. Uh, um, that’s probably a whole different chapter of this. Uh, you don’t want to use anything that can cut the circulation, blood circulation or to compress the nerves. It’s really a word after all, after out of there. Uh, if you start examining everything that can go wrong and you should, at some point in your exploration, uh, it really never ends.
Dan 27:25
Very cool. Um, well, one more question for you, if you don’t mind.
Ayzad 27:30
Yeah, sure. It feels very much like an interrogation, but, yeah.
Dan 27:35
Um, and well, you’re, you’re, it’s really gonna feel weird because this, we’re going to, I’m going to go sidebar completely. This has nothing to do with what we’ve been talking about so far, but I have to know. You have another book called, uh, I think I have the name as BDSM – A Guide For Explorers. And I hear the occasion that it is referred to as the Bible of BDSM. Why would it give, what, what leads people to give it that sort of reference?
Ayzad 28:03
Well, uh, first of all, you have to know, I leave in Italy. So we have a, definitely a younger scene than the United States. But, uh, anyway, this book came out, um, in 2003, I believe.
And, uh, it was the first about this subject around here. So, um, what was adopted as a textbook actually by several schools and universities. And, um, that’s basically the reason also probably because it is a beast of over 600 pages. It’s excellent as a beating implement, for example, very multipurpose book.
Dan 28:47
That is great. That’s a great way to get double, double use out of it. Ayzad, thank you very much for being on the podcast tonight. Where can people find the Explorers of Unusual Sex podcast as well as your books?
Ayzad 28:59
Right, but it’s pretty much everywhere and, uh, you can find it on iTunes and Spotify and whatever. It’s 15 episodes in English as well as, as in Italian. And every episode is about a different aspect of, uh, uh, unusual sex. We have something about, uh, uh, sex in space, for example, and, uh, yeah, all the, the politics of and the psychology of cuckolding somewhere and a real lots of stuff and a supernatural sex. And you really have to listen to that. It’s called Explore of Unusual Sex and you can more easily find it through my name? Ayzad A Y Z A D.
Dan 29:46
Fantastic. Thank you very much for being on the podcast tonight and I’m looking forward to, um, practicing some non rope restraint.
Ayzad 29:55
Anytime.
Dan 29:58
Take a moment to support the podcast. Rate us on Apple Podcasts, Google play, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Or just tell your friends. If you like what we’re doing, head over to patreon.com/eroticawakening and take a look at the options like discounted stuff, extra content, free mini books and more. Bye Ayzad.
Ayzad 30:18
Right.
Dan 30:26
Take a moment to support the podcast.
Dawn 30:28
Rate us on Apple Podcast, Google play, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
Dan 30:35
Or head over to YouTube and rate us over there, wherever you watch.
Dawn 30:39
Or just tell your friends.
Dan 30:41
We appreciate the interactions, the comments, the emails. Feel free to reach out to us either via Discord, Facebook, Instagram, or just write us: dananddawn@eroticawakening.com
Dawn 30:58
Bye Dan.
Dan 30:59
Bye Dawn.
