In this episode of Cubs Out Loud, the guys are joined once again by Dr. Edward Angelini-Cooke to continue our Landscape of Relationships series. For this episode, the guys discuss the potential red, yellow and green flags in relationship and kink dynamics. While a potentially funny meme, these flags are no laughing matter. Listen in as the cubs unfurl some details and give some insight into looking out for the signals of a healthy (and unhealthy) relationship.
Show Topic
Landscape of Relationships: Red Flags, Green Flags
What are Relationship Flags?
Relationship flags are indicators of healthy, unhealthy, and dangerous behaviors or feelings within relationships.
They can be red, yellow, or green.
Red Flags
Controlling behaviors
Violence
Emotional and verbal abuse
Intentional sabotage or hurting of feelings
Walking on eggshells
Friends and family (support) are not trusting of your partner
Using things against you that were told in confidence
Usually can improve for short periods of time but abuse is usually cyclical
Yellow Flags
All or nothing communication
Pushes boundaries
Codependency or enmeshment
Difficulty with finding things in common
Lack of similarities with goals and values
These can be improved upon in meaningful ways
Green Flags
Healthy communication
Respecting boundaries
Interdependence
Supportive of goals and values
Knowing love languages
Awareness that no relationship is perfect
Let’s Get Kinky
Red Flags in Kink
Expect you to immediately obey them and call them an honorific or title before agreed upon/Call you a title one honorific immediately before agreed upon
Don’t ask you about your hard or soft limits
Tell you what “real” or “true” submissive or a dominant does
Separate you from friends and family or kinky friends
Tell you that they have no limits and expect you to have no limits as well
Expect you, as the Dominant, to take full responsibility for their health and wellbeing, both physically and emotionally
Dismiss opinions
Dictate how your dynamic will go
Green Flags in Kink
Want to get to know you on a deeper level, and have an interest in more than just your kinks and sexual preferences
They won’t do anything without your expressed consent, and will respect your stated boundaries and limits, as well as sharing their own
They’re interested in hearing about your journey in kink, as well as what turns you on and off, along with your opinions on how you’d like your dynamic to grow
They respect your existing friendships and relationships, even if they may not be directly introduced to the other important people in your life
They emphasize the importance of safety, consent, negotiation, and safe words in kinky dynamics
They take responsibility for their actions, understanding that you are not the cure for their problems
If you feel you are in a dangerous relationship situation. Please contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline: 800-799-7233
In this episode of Cubs Out Loud, the guys get together after some time away to discuss the recent changes to terms of service of the Growlr app. With social media data collection being a hot topic, Growlr is the next app to fall under scrutiny after changes were made to their TOS. What does this mean for the app? Has their recent acquisition by a larger corporation caused larger sweeping changes? Will there be another mass exodus as there was with Tumblr?
Show Topic
RIP GROWLr? – we ask the question “Has the bear community brought about the end of its own app?”
In this episode of Cubs Out Loud, the cubs roll the dice on the topic of tabletop gaming. Listen in as the guys throw their cards on the table about what games they enjoy, what they like and don’t like about tabletop and card gaming. From the groans when someone mentions Monopoly to the joy and excitement of Exploding Kittens, have some fun gathering around for a great gaming adventure.
Chester Beltowski: I’m listening to episode COL398: Bud Sex and I am laughing my ass off at the “old fluids” bit, man I wish I was on the show for this! BTW Damon, the “wall” you were describing can be considered anthropologically significant.
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From right after Christmas…
Hi, guys. I’m about 2 months behind in listening to your podcast, and I’m having a problem with Chester’s “I’ll Tumbl For You” links. Whenever I try to open one (current example), I get “The URL you requested could not be found.” I tried following Chester’s “The Cub Up There” blog back to the date of the show (slow-scrolling thru 2 months of backlog), but I couldn’t find anything there that looked like what he described on the show.
Is it possible that Chester deletes his Tumblr posts after the “Cubs Out Loud” podcast?
Keep ’em coming, & merry holidays,
Henry
Atlanta, Ga.
From after COL398 ‘Bud Sex’
Hi there cubs!
First of all, Happy New Year and thanks for having Hadrian read those stories a few episodes ago! It definitely made the cold weather somewhat warmer 😀 Second, I just finished listening to the Bud Sex episode you just released. I also briefly read the scientific journal article afterward. Being that you have indirectly summoned the COL scientist (thanks for the title, Jeff), I considered writing about a few things relevant to the discussion.
Defining/measuring sexual orientation: A few of you mentioned the Kinsey scale to define sexual orientation. As revolutionary as this scale was back in the 50s, it does not represent sexual orientation accurately. Consider it more of a legacy instrument than a good one to define and measure sexual orientation. More recent models have proposed at least 3 dimensions to sexual orientation that can explain most of what we observe: identity, behavior, attraction.
Identity refers to how you define yourself, in this case, sexually. If you identify as gay, bi, straight, queer, etc. that is your identity.
Behavior refers to what people do sexually. In other words, who are people having sex with?
Attraction refers to the gender you are attracted to.
Further, imagine that these 3 dimensions can be measured on a scale (for example, 1 to 10) instead of a “yes” or “no.” For example, I identify as gay (10) and do not identify as bi (0), straight (0), or queer (0); I have only had sex with men (10) and I have not had sex with women (0); and I feel very attracted to men (9) and a little attracted to women (3). Now, based on our understanding of sexual orientation with these 3 dimensions we can conceive the existence of men who identify as straight, have sex with men and women at different levels, and feel attracted to both males and females at different levels. That is what sociologists, anthropologists, and the community at large may consider MSM, brojob, or bud-sex dude. Consider also those guys who identify as gay (8-10), who have only had sex with women because of social expectations or other reasons, and may be attracted to men way more than to women. I have met bears who were married, had kids, ended up getting a divorce, and are in a current relationship with another guy. They do not consider themselves as bisexual. The combinations are endless and could also encompass asexual (identity) people who are not interested in sex (behavior), but like people of their own, opposite, or both genders(attraction). I have found in my own research that this model captures way more information than a simple yes/no or Kinsley scale. Also, with this more comprehensive model, there is no need to challenge anyone’s identity because of who they are having sex with. Science is not barely catching up. In psychology we have had this and similar models for a long time (probably 30 years) but since it is more complicated to understand and does not raise much controversy, popular publications outside the field pay little attention.
Sample size: Yes, 19 participants are not much and all of them are self-selected. Both things affect generalizability. Unless you have millions of dollars to conduct a study or you are gathering data for a census, this limitation is common, especially on research using interviews as the method to collect data. This limitation does not prevent the information to be valuable, especially when it elicits new ideas and a few hypotheses just like the ones Hadrian presented.
As usual, if you have any extra questions please let me know.
In this episode of Cubs Out Loud, the guys are joined once again by Dr. Edward Angelini-Cooke to continue our Landscape of Relationships series. For this episode, the guys discuss the potential red, yellow and green flags in relationship and kink dynamics. While a potentially funny meme, these flags are no laughing matter. Listen in as the cubs unfurl some details and give some insight into looking out for the signals of a healthy (and unhealthy) relationship.
