Aella's writeup on how her consensual nonconsent orgies work: https://aella.substack.com/p/how-my-consensual-nonconsent-orgies

Aella's Twitter: https://twitter.com/aella_girl

Aella's website: https://knowingless.com/

Aella's surveys: https://knowingless.com/survey/In this podcast episode, Malcolm and Simone delve into an eye-opening discussion with Aella, an acclaimed sexuality researcher and the foremost expert on consensual non-consent (CNC) parties. This conversation navigates the boundaries of sexual research, societal perceptions, consent, and safety measures while exploring the underbelly of CNC parties. Tune in to gain unprecedented insights into a world that seldom sees the light of day, and find out what really happens when safety meets desire in an unconventional setting.

Malcolm: [00:00:00] We are so excited for our guest today, Aella because, , we have such a beef with the existing academic and research system, and for us, you are this shining light of a genuine alternative to the system, , another thing we've talked about on the podcast is how we rate it.

Malcolm: Genuine intelligence from our cultural perspective. And the idea that you are out there doing research, not for remuneration, you didn't get into it for anything like that. You just did it because you loved it. And it was really cool to see. But for people who don't know Ayla, she is probably the most.

Malcolm: Advanced sexuality researcher in the world. As people who wrote a bestselling book on sexuality, I'm saying that and she is somebody who really does a lot of, pretty groundbreaking research into the way humans think,

Malcolm: the first question for this one is . So there's this perception of society of these secretive groups of like [00:01:00] elite people who host sex parties where nefarious things happen. Yeah.

Simone: I'll set this. scene because it always shows up in my gossipy girly shows where one of the protagonists ends up at this mansion where everyone is wearing masks and black and you know, they, they walk in and there's candles everywhere and it seems super evil and they're handed a glass of champagne and then just like people are like, they're just going to start.

Simone: It's just suggested that like a bunch of people are going to either start having sex or are having sex or end up getting murdered or something. Yeah.

Malcolm: Yeah. , and there's this famous Twitter thread of you about a consensual non consent party. You're having them where it's like had a torture buffet.

Malcolm: And if anyone in the world understands the logistics of actually putting one of these together, what that's like, what you're thinking about when you're doing it, what you have to make sure doesn't go wrong. I am just so fascinated to hear about this.

Aella: Thanks, guys. Great, great to be here. I'm [00:02:00] so happy to be on your podcast.

Aella: Wait, yeah, to be clear, the torture parties are a separate thing from the non con parties. Yes. CNC. I'm going to call it CNC. I do have them. There's no sex going on at the torture parties. It's just like another logistical thing to throw into the mix. And oh yeah, the CNC parties are basically you come in and you wear like wristbands that indicate what you're open to having happen.

Aella: And you operate within certain, like, bounds of accepted norms. So there's like a list of things that you can do to somebody if they have the wristband on, and then if the person wants to make exceptions, they wear like a badge, and you have to read that badge before you engage with them, stuff like that.

Simone: So wait, wait, wait, wait. Hold on. This is sounding very similar to me to whitewater rafting. Like in my, in my teenage years I did a lot of whitewater rafting, my dad and my sister were river guides. And before going rafting, you had to like stop everyone and have a safety talk about how the life jackets worked, what would happen if your boat wrapped, wrapped around a rock, how to paddle [00:03:00] correctly.

Simone: Like, do you have a safety talk before these

Aella: begin? Yeah, we have, we have to arrive mandatorily on time before the doors. Close because it's required that everybody is there for the opening circle and the opening circle to go over the rules again in your invite. When you come to the event, you have to read the rules.

Aella: And then when you enter the door, you sign a waiver that explains again, what you're getting into and that you understand and are agreeing to this. And then we sit you down and we explain it all again, just to make really sure that you understand what's happening. And then we go through the list of things you can do, can't do, like the, the orientations to the space.

Aella: We explain like how to use some of like the toys and the tools the norms again we do exercises where you have to, and it's like, it's like, I hate exercises at the beginning of things, but like, I think it's good still, and we just want to be really. over the top. So we have people pair off and the name of the party is red means no.

Aella: So basically the thing is you get to say no and have people ignore that, but we replaced the word [00:04:00] no with the word red. So, so you just practice saying no and having that ignored and being able to ignore another people. And then you practice saying the word red and having people instantly respect that.

Aella: I just basically like retrain intuitively what that's like. So you're like, you touch somebody and then you say, don't do that. No, you can like experiment different ways. Like, no. And then you say red and they have to immediately respect it. So we don't do like actual like structured practice to make sure that everybody like understands what they're getting into.

Malcolm: What I love about this. It is so different than what is pictured as to what these parties are. It's like a bunch of safety seminars. Now we've got to act it out to make sure we don't go too far, but it makes a lot of sense. How do you think about when you're thinking who to invite to these, how do you vet them?

Malcolm: Because you know, if you're, if you're bringing some, I guess you have to ask for recommendations or.

Aella: Yeah, we've it's it's still like relatively new we're throwing in maybe like one or two a year so far So pretty slow, but we started out with like network and [00:05:00] referrals because like a really big thing is I don't want to accidentally introduce Bad incentives into this this game design, right?

Aella: You don't want people who are like suppressing the thing that they actually want in order to try to be liked or Accepted or to participate like it's a big thing at the beginning. We say We, you came here because you wanted this, but if you decide here that this is not what you want to do, we want you to just not do it like it's okay to just sit and watch like we please do not pressure yourself to do it, but there's still like a lot of social pressure sometimes, even if you're trying really hard to make sure this doesn't happen, like, say you go, this is your first time and you're really excited.

Aella: And then you get there and you realize, wait a second, I don't actually want to do this, but you don't want to disappoint the host because you're not supposed to think you're really cool. And so you like, kind of like force yourself to, you know, Deal with something that you didn't want to actually. So in attempting to avoid this, we mostly try to invite people who have independently expressed interest in like C N C without trying to get to this party.

Aella: So we, so we asked for referrals for people who know somebody who has [00:06:00] established already experience or, or like, clear this is what I wanted beforehand. So we try to separate those incentives a little bit,

Malcolm: as much as possible, once we talk a lot of, a lot on our podcast status hierarchies and how they can emergently form. Do you notice any sort of like emergent status hierarchy forming within these? Is it based on like how dominant someone is sexually or is it based on something else?

Aella: So, okay, so, so this is a little bit interesting because in a typical orgy you have like women who are doing refusals, but in this kind of orgy in general, you mostly don't have women doing refusals.

Aella: Because it's just, it's just a free for all, right? Like, and so what's interesting is that, like, if you remove, like, female choice from a sexual dynamic, like, what happens? And so you have, like, it's a little bit I hadn't thought about that. Because, like, if you're not getting fucked by anybody, it's because all of you, like, they're all busy f*****g the other women.

Aella: Yes. So it's an interesting, like, [00:07:00] distribution thing, and it's like, it can be a little bit difficult to handle. So what's, I

Simone: want to know, so at an orgy versus a CNC party, is there a different male to female ratio that is

Aella: ideal? Right. At a typical orgy, you want two women per one

Simone: man, generally refusals.

Aella: Yeah, and like women are more likely to be bisexual and like, you want like enough women to like pad out that like at least one woman is going to be down, but it's the reverse for C and C orgies. You want two men to one woman. Yeah. Oh, that

Malcolm: is fascinating. Okay. So here's the question. The, the, the people who the men are choosing in these totally unrestricted environments because they're choosing whoever they want.

Malcolm: Is it different than who people might expect? Like, does it change within the different environments? Who the men are targeting? Is it the most generally attractive people? Is it the highest status people in society? Is it people who they knew? Like what's It's,

Aella: it's hard [00:08:00] to tell because there's other factors at play, but my general sense is, yeah, it corresponds to like how generally attractive people are.

Aella: Like there's one girl who comes to these, who I think is. I've heard from men it's like, oh, this is like the hottest girl and she just gets

Malcolm: like slaughtered each time. It's like a lie. I

Aella: want to have sex with her though and I'm like, okay.

Simone: Okay.

Aella: Noted. Noted. Yeah. So you kind of like become really face to face with like your ranking in a sense, which is nice to have lots of men because if you just have a surplus of men f*****g you all the time, then you don't have to do the thing where you're sitting on the sidelines kind of feeling.

Aella: Disliked or something. Yeah. I feel like this is kind

Simone: of like the worst nightmare of the being picked last for softball or something like challenge of like, nobody wants to take the

Malcolm: last to be raped non consensually . That is the, just not as interesting. Well, actually this is this because I'm thinking [00:09:00] like, what are you trying to simulate here?

Malcolm: Like, like historically, like what would've. And it would've been like a village raid or something like that. And now I'm actually thinking about the psychological distress of the one woman in the village who wasn't raped during the raid. I just,

Aella: oh my God. Yeah, and to be fair, there are other factors, right? Yes. Like some people have things on their badges, like some people have like certain preferences, so it's not a perfect one to one. Like definitely like the first time I think I'm like, Not that ugly, but like the first orgy basically nobody fucked me and I was like,

Simone: But isn't it, did it be because of your status?

Simone: They're like, well, I don't want to embarrass myself in front of senpai. Yeah. Like it would be, I'd be so nervous,

Malcolm: you know, like, how did you adapt to that?

Aella: I mean, it's okay. Like I think, I think two people had sex with me or something like that. And I was a little disappointed, but this is also a problem of.

Aella: It's, it's not just that like men are going for the hottest women first [00:10:00] or whatever. There's like a thing where make it really tired. Like if you're doing one, if you're role playing some sort of struggle scenario, which is really fun. Yeah. And if you're a guy that's just like to do this, like a bunch of women is, it's a lot nicer in fantasy than it is in reality.

Aella: You should like your

Simone: beach body, but also your CNC party body. You got to like train for it. You know,

Aella: there's also people are weirdly bad at bondage. So like the first orgy, we prefer like, Oh, we'll give some ropes or whatever it gives, you know, you want to make it easier. If you're simulating, like if you're doing the role play, where like you actually are trying not to be fucked, it's just exhausting to try to actually like get somebody down and you need to like coordination from other men.

Aella: But like, for example, our first orgy, we didn't have that many men because we were trying to go by normal orgy rules. So like, It was just like guys were getting tired out left and right. Nobody could tie anybody up. I'm just picturing like all these people

Simone: just looking winded, like sitting around in this like very sexy looking [00:11:00] scenario.

Simone: But I was just like, just,

Malcolm: just all these exhausted men just like used up by the

Aella: succulences. But I mean,

Simone: actually, this is really interesting because you never really think about when you need to learn how to like quickly hog tie someone, no one's practicing this. And now I'm like, if this catches on, , that there are going to be some barrier, like , seminars for like, okay, really quickly how to handle this, ,

Aella: Well, well, we did update, so the next orgy we switched to like, Velcro handcuffs, for example.

Aella: Oh, smart. Which we like the pre latched onto various points in the room. And then, then it became much easier because it's also safer. Like, like bondage is good. You have to be careful to make sure you're doing the correct ties to not excel restrict blood flow. Right, right. So it's better in like a.

Aella: frantic chaotic orgy environment just like have we'll just velcro and we have like uh stocks like we got like mobile devices you can like clamp around somebody's Anyway, it's easier now

Malcolm: Skill at these various tasks determine Their position was any sort of local hierarchy was in this group or is it [00:12:00] largely irrelevant?

Aella: It's been hard for me to determine hierarchy among males, cause I'm usually pretty distracted.

Aella: But like, talking to I think if we, which is one thing I'm really curious about. . One orgy I'm really interested in throwing is one that like tries to actually simulate mate guarding more, where it's like you gain a point for every woman you f**k, and then you lose a point.

Aella: If a man f***s a woman that you have fucked before. Just to see, like, if that actually creates a male dominance hierarchy based on the males that are, like, more efficiently able to control females. Just to see if we can replicate a primal environment, you know? I like that.

Simone: But that's even more exhausting for the guys.

Simone: Now I'm just, like, thinking about this and I'm like... If I were a guy, I'm not excited.

Malcolm: This is too much. No, no. I'm thinking genuinely about going to one. Like, if I was going to go to one of these, my core thing would be like, how do I not look like a fool? And when you're asking, how do you not look like a fool?

Malcolm: What you're really asking yourself is how do I ensure I don't [00:13:00] look like I'm at the bottom of the local dominance hierarchy? And so I think guys at these events are probably actually really sensitive to how their actions are perceived by the group writ large. And I think a lot of male sexual activity is as driven As much by how it reflects on their self image as it is by any sort of primal desire, which probably really you talk about the level of work that's going into this.

Malcolm: I find that just really fascinating. Well, but

Simone: I think what's more interesting, Ayla, is what you're talking about with male camaraderie. Like, I'm always like, I'm thinking back to like the raid scenario in which like, oh, is this kind of how like guys like bonded in the past? Like guys night out, like we're going to rape and pillage a village.

Simone: And this is like. Oh, we feel so much closer now. I don't know. Like, did you, do you feel more of a sense of, of bonding or competition or is it both? Like they're in,

Malcolm: in. Oh yeah. Yeah. And the women in the group, do you notice competition or like you feel like less camaraderie?

Aella: I haven't noticed any competition with the women generally because there's not really much opportunity to interact at all.

Aella: As some of the women, we do have a few.[00:14:00] But I haven't, but it's like not enough to really notice trends. But generally, generally you're just like, you know, my experience has been, I don't know what the f**k is going on. There's just like penises everywhere, which is really nice. I really like that. But with, with a lot of camaraderie.

Aella: So like we have, so there's rules about like engagement. Right. So for example if you're a man and you're like having sex with a woman, How should it work? But should the norms be if another man wants to come on and like stick his penis into the woman's face, right? Like, like what if the guy who's like doing the f*****g like really isn't interested in a threesome?

Aella: Like that's like a boundary for him. He just doesn't want like another man in his sexual space, right? So we have to figure out norms for this. And right now our norm is like you ask like, hey, do you need a hand? And if you're a guy I like that. Like banging someone or like trying to wrestle a woman down, then you can say, yeah, I do need a hand.

Aella: And then now you've got both guys. you know, taking out all of you together. It's very nice. Very

Simone: sweet. That does feel like camaraderie. Yeah. What,

Aella: what do the various risks, like,

Simone: so the physical things that people are wearing, [00:15:00] like wrist bands, what will they, aside from like, I'm in, I'm okay with dudes, I'm okay with women.

Simone: Like what else do they signify? So far we're keeping

Aella: it really simple. Because we're trying to do something where you don't have to like stop, we don't, we want to reduce room for mistakes. We want to make it so that if you're in the pit of bodies, you don't like forget that one color means one thing.

Aella: So historically, we're just like, what gender are you open to? Though this next round, we're going to be trying Because I want to see if we can expand this orgy into sort of a free use thing. Because some people aren't super interested in a resisting experience. They want to just, like, kind of be taken and then just have normal sex with whoever just initiates.

Aella: So I want to see if we can expand it to include both. So we're going to have wristbands that indicate, like, do you expect to give resistance or not? That way, like, men can pick if they want to go for somebody, whether it's going to be a struggle or just somebody who anticipates. Of course, it's not required.

Aella: Like, you might change your mind in the middle.

Malcolm: That's really, I think that's a good thing to do. Because if I went to one of these parties and somebody didn't [00:16:00] resist, I'd be very disappointed. So... More easily sort

Aella: for, for. Right. Yeah. And cause maybe you do your sausage at the end of the night. Maybe you're not.

Aella: Yeah. And then are the glow sticks. This is another problem. Wait, glow sticks? So we tried to color wristbands, but it turns out like the lights are low for mood lighting. We have like colored lights and it made it actually, and they were, they're like paper, like standard wristbands that you get. And they're kind of like getting like crushed and turned over and it was a little dark.

Aella: So it wasn't easy to tell immediately. And so. We're going to switch to a glow stick system where we can get, so it's really obvious. I

Malcolm: like that. I also love the idea that a women, you know, if you, if you do this, like the, I'm going to resist, I'm going to not resist. The value of each category of woman changes dynamically throughout the night with the non resisting women becoming higher value the longer the night goes on and the more exhausted the men become.

Malcolm: You'll see the women who are being left out change throughout the course of

Simone: that is interesting. [00:17:00] Okay, wait. So, optimal temperature. What is

it?

Aella: Pretty cool. You want it a little bit cooler. We have a lot of blankets set out and pillows. Oh. And then you want a little bit cooler just because it gets sweaty.

Simone: Music or no music? We

Aella: historically have had music in the background, which is a funny choice because you're like, which music should I? Yeah. Which live should I set? Yeah.

Simone: So or vocal? Instrumental, I'm assuming.

Aella: We used to do kind of like jivey background

Simone: stuff. Okay do people start out clothed or not?

Aella: Start out clothed and Oh yeah, because that's kind of like not show up in things that you don't want to get destroyed, you know?

Malcolm: In the movies, when people are going to these, they always have like black robes and are like inconspicuous. In reality, is it like normal street wear? Or is

Aella: it? Do you dress up?

Aella: We do. The last one we tried a theme a little bit, like, you can show up in like in a costume and the theme was funnily, like a dark ritual theme. Oh, fun! Okay, so we're getting a little bit [00:18:00] of a stereotype. It's

Simone: true. I think a lot of people are like,

Aella: oh, thank God. But the next one is mad science. So it's

Simone: like mad science appearance.

Simone: No! Oh my god, lab coat and nothing beneath. Hello! This is

Aella: going to be so, oh my god.

Malcolm: So I want to go into the torture parties now. Yeah, we can't, we

Simone: can't touch, yeah, torture buffet, yeah, what's going on? Yeah, traditional buffet is

Aella: super fun. Historically, it had great party ratings. It's, it's not sexual.

Aella: It's not as scandalous as it sounds. Basically, it's a party, and when you come, you have to bring torture to share. And it's basically any sort of uncomfortable experience. It can be like, Something that smells really bad or like maybe, you know, like hand claws or like some people do electrocution one person did like you kneel on grits because it's really painful.

Aella: I have to slap people like one torture was somebody who like put clips on you as they whisper into your ear accounts of incentive line that they went poorly like in economics. Oh, [00:19:00] like where like historically governments have been like policies that backfired. That's

Malcolm: good. Is there, is there a drinking

Aella: at these parties?

Aella: That one, yeah. The torture. I mean, it's, it's not like a lot of drinking. It's just like you get cocktails or whatever. And that one's nice because you get to experience like a smorgasbord of interesting unpleasant sensations. And it's really bonding for the people you're doing it with. Cause like you're both together, like, all right, we're going to try and experience like being uncomfortable for a second.

Aella: And like one person guides the other person through the experience. It's really delightful. One

Malcolm: of my favorite Ayla moments was when you were on Twitter asking people how to properly waterboard someone. Safely. You're like, does anyone have experience with this? I'd really like to bring this to the next torture buffet.

Malcolm: Twitter,

Simone: s**t

Malcolm: a brick. What's an interesting dynamic you don't think about that you actually have to go out, you know, if you're trying a torture, you have to know how to do it safely. So you have to go out there and read torture literature.

Aella: Yeah, we haven't [00:20:00] actually had too many dangerous tortures.

Aella: Recently, but like, for example, with electrocution, you want to make sure you only electrocute like the waist or downwards, just, you know, stuff, basic stuff like that. Oh, But in general, the tortures are pretty like milder fun. Like somebody brought little Legos to walk on, you know, like,

Simone: Oh, that's good.

Simone: That's good. Classic parent torture. Oh

Malcolm: my gosh. Another thing that I've been thinking about, from this conversation is the types of sex parties that I hear about. From older movies, from, like, our, our parents generation. Oh, of course. Or I wonder if they were, moral panics, or if they ever actually happened. Like, key parties, right? Where, like, you would go to a party, and everyone would put their keys in a bowl, and you'd pick out a key, and then you'd be sleeping with wh wh whoever's key you'd randomly picked out or something?

Malcolm: Oh. Or, or lock parties. Any of these weirder party designs, have you heard of these really happening? Or are they just fantasies?

Aella: I wouldn't be surprised if they do actually happen. So one, gay communities, a lot more stuff happens there. [00:21:00] They are way more experimental. I can easily see it happening in a gay community, and then, like, legends percolate.

Aella: But two, like, I think, like, for example, this is an example, that I am throwing these weird parties, and this would probably consider a similar degree to a key party, where you're like, Having sex with somebody you didn't choose. But even before I did this, when I was doing this, I'd like to try and really hard.

Aella: Is anybody else doing this at all? And I was really searching. Nobody else was, but

Aella: there used to be one that was thrown in the Bay area called hostage parties. And it was like a slightly different setup, but they had basically like there are hostages and you have to go out and like get information from the people who are. Tied up and it's like a game like who's gonna break first who truly has the information who doesn't And those seem really fun, but they I guess the guy who ran it died of covid And so it just stopped like during covid basically.

Aella: Oh my gosh I

Malcolm: can think of a weird interesting party that happened at my college. Which was along the lines It was called the anything for money party it was held by the Business Society. Everybody started with a certain amount of tokens, which counted as money.

Malcolm: And you would try to [00:22:00] end up with the most tokens at the end of the night through negotiation or you know, trading things that you had. And the people who won got, like, a car and, like, a large screen TV. Back when a large screen TV was worth a lot of money. And so, of course, it just turned into exchanging tokens for sex party.

Simone: The fastest

Malcolm: way to try to get the car, you know? Yeah, that's great. Yeah.

Simone: So like what, like the hottest people, like they're the most entrepreneurial, like that

Malcolm: would actually be very interesting for one of your parties as well, a token exchange party where,

Simone: but I don't know, like it just seems like a lot of work.

Simone: I don't, I don't know. All these seem

Aella: like a lot of work. Like, if you can't exchange the tokens for a thing at the end, like, would it technically run afoul of prostitution law?

Simone: Mmm.

Malcolm: Oh, yeah, that's a good point.

Malcolm: . Or there's other interesting things you could do, which is... Have the prizes still be determinate on chance, but your, your odds increase the more [00:23:00] tokens you have at the end of the night. So it's like a sortition system where each of the tokens counts as an individual, like slip of paper with your name on it.

Malcolm: So if you had six tokens, six slips of paper with your name on it going to the bowl. And then at the end of the night, somebody takes one slip of paper from the bowl. And so it still allows anyone to potentially win. So you never feel like you're counted out because I think if you did it without this system, people would feel like, okay, I'm definitely not gonna have any chance of winning this.

Malcolm: So I'm just not really gonna play for that type of game. But this way, everyone would still always be incrementally motivated.

Simone: What I'm taking away from this is basically some of the fantasy is real, which I think is wonderful. And that like, there are sometimes dark robes and like people dressing up a little bit.

Simone: But what everyone's missing is the planning, the consideration, the careful invites. The vetting, the safety talk, the, you know, like, the wrist pins. And I just, I also just love that, like, the name of the most recent TNC party you threw was Red Means No. It's like, throwing a, a skydiving party, which [00:24:00] is , like, pull, pull cord for parachute

Aella: party.

Aella: It's like, the one

Simone: thing you really need to not forget, we're calling it that.

Malcolm: It's great. But I, I also like, and I hope that this. you know, SEO wise serves as this, that this is the person people need to come to when they are writing shows where a sex party takes place. Because I think that these need to be much more accurate in my teen dramas and a great consultant.

Aella: Normal sex party is a lot easier. There's a way more logistics that go into a CNC event. It's like taking drugs. I don't know if you, if how, how the audience is familiar, but like, if you're doing psychedelics, you want to set everything up beforehand because it's like choices revoked during the trip, right?

Aella: Your judgment is off. You can't like, if somebody comes to the door, you can't like make a decision. Then you have to make sort of everything for you where the rest of it just falls through. That's very much like that. Whereas normally, normal sex parties, you can, like, re evaluate what's going on in the middle of it.

Aella: You don't have to expect new norms for the [00:25:00] entire party.

Simone: You're operating here at, , pro level. I think you may be forgetting just how, even for, a normal sex party, how much you're also, , doing insane levels of vetting and planning. I mean, because you still have to consider, , are people coming in with good faith?

Simone: Are they going to respect boundaries? Yeah. Or are they, are they, , even, , mentally really ready to, , be in, in a group sex environment, , even if they may act like they want to, , I think you're already super considerate about that, , now you can take it to the level of C& C, but,

Malcolm: like, Well, if other people were doing this, she would know.

Malcolm: And she said, you know, you did the research, you did the homework, and you had a hard time finding anyone doing else anything, like, interesting like this. Because it

Simone: takes so much work. It's a

Aella: ton of work. Well, I also think it's like really controversial for the current environment, like, even I, I caught wind a little bit of like some of the kink communities were talking negatively about the party we're throwing now.

Aella: Like the impression I've gotten is that like the kink parties have like a hierarchy of like kink experience. Like you have to be established in the kink community. community to be able to be [00:26:00] like, granted the social authority to be able to throw any sort of like high risk party at all. And so the fact that I'm a complete outsider when it comes to like, I'm not involved in kink scene whatsoever.

Aella: I'm just not really interested. And so, so I think I'm like subject to a higher level of criticism.

Malcolm: It makes a lot of sense whenever I've engaged with the kink scene, my, my perception of it has been that it is just like. I just associate it with bureaucracy. Whenever I'm around it, I'm like, Oh, it's, it's bureaucracy

Simone: day.

Simone: No, it reminds me a lot of Six Sigma corporate people who are like I'm level like this, they're like, what courses have you taken? I've just spent a lot of time building this special rig, , like it's a lot about gear and it's a lot about rules.

Simone: Portlandia.

Simone: Or like D& D teams spending like five hours, like making out their character sheets instead of necessarily engaging in the pursuit that is the subject. But

Malcolm: what I think is really indicative here is that culturally, the way that you're putting this together, I bet is a very different experience than if it was put together by the traditional kink [00:27:00] community.

Aella: Yes, this is, this is my guess. My guess is that there's like a greater social fear or something of doing C& C stuff. Because the NC stuff is like increasingly taboo. Because like, consent is such a big, people harp on consent, which to be clear, I'm also big on consent, like, we also harp on this, like, because the consent rules are not changed whatsoever.

Aella: It's just the word changes, that's it, and you get to like, roleplay it. There's no actual assault going on.

Simone: Yeah, it's a CNC party, not an NC party.

Aella: Period. It's very much consensual. But I think that like, even the fact, I think like, even roleplaying it is a little bit too taboo for a lot of these people.

Aella: Just really, they're afraid of like normalizing it, you know, like, Oh, like we can't like talk about it positively without a lot of judgment. And I don't think this is everybody obviously, but my guess is it's like some sort of cultural flavor here is like infiltrating the general vibes.

Simone: That's really rough considering the number of.

Simone: Women especially who are [00:28:00] like actively aroused by non consent, period. Like, and also like real non consent. Cause we looked at that in our survey. It never gets real high. Like I

Malcolm: should clarify for the audience. This is not like a like a weird fetish thing. This is like 30, 40% of the population or something.

Malcolm: Like, I can't remember from our data, but it's not like a, a, Oh, Oh, you're a weirdo. It's, it's probably, yeah. Yeah.

Simone: For our book, The Pragmatist Guide to Sexuality, when Malcolm did his survey on Positly. He, he had a question of like, how much does the concept of rape play arouse you? But then right below, how does the concept of actual rape arouse you?

Simone: They're like, make no ambiguity. Like, this is really obvious. We're talking about the real thing. And a huge number of people were like, yeah, yeah, actual, actual rape. Like super hot.

Simone: Ayla, thank you very much for satisfying my immense curiosity on this because I watched so many smutty girly shows where this is depicted.

Simone: I just want to know the real story. Where should people follow you go if they would like to learn more about your research and your work?

Aella: Yeah, my [00:29:00] Twitter is Ayla underscore girl, A E L L A underscore girl. And my general website, which has links to all of the things is knowingless. com. It's like K N O W, knowingless.

Aella: com. I also have a blog post. Where I explain the logistics of the CNC parties and at the end, there is an application.

Simone: So we will link to that in the show notes because that is a really good read. I've read it. I love it. And I love talking about this too. Thank you so much, Ayla. Yeah, my pleasure. Thank

Aella: you.

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