“When I spoke, I had the chance to educate, and paradoxically, I became less of a freak.” -Kate Bornstein
[Scroll down for a full transcript of the episode].
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Episode 1: Defining Our Terms – Show Notes
In this very first episode of the Kinky Nerdy Poly Podcast, the show hosts, M & G, will introduce themselves, explain some of their interests are, and talk about how the podcast started.
Additionally, they will talk about a number of important terms such as subculture, consent, RPGs, and metamor. The hosts will talk about what they believe to be the definition of these terms are and how they will be used for the rest of the podcast.
Twitter: @knppodcast
Email: kinky.nerdy.poly@gmail.com
The music in this episode is the Secret of Tiki Island by Kevin MacLeod and is licensed under Creative Commons 3.0.
FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
M: [00:00:00] Please note, if you’re listening to this, you must be 18 years of age or older. This podcast contains adult themes and may include descriptions that listeners could find offensive. Thank. When I spoke, I had a chance to educate and paradoxically, I became less of a freak. Kate Bornstein.
G: Welcome to the kinky nerdy poly podcast. This is episode one.
M: No, I’m super nervous. You’re super nervous. No, don’t be nervous. We’re just literally just talking,
G: right? Yeah. We’re literally just talking. All right. So, so G
M: tell me about yourself.
G: Tell, tell me all right. Well, I, God, I don’t know [00:01:00] where to start.
What, what do I, what do I wanna put out there for the whole world to listen to on a, your
M: history growing up on a farm,
G: maybe my history growing up on a farm, working the imaginary corn fields, and, you know, just, just waiting for the, uh, the dog park to finally be open to humans. , you
M: know, your work on that imaginary cornfield did lead to, you know, imaginary corn muffin.
Oh, yeah. Which did, you know, become very popular. And then we got the rise of imaginary pies. Yeah. And now we have imaginary pizza, so yeah. Yes. Thank you for that.
G: So I guess the things that are relevant to the podcast , and that are not related to corn, I’m G. I consider myself to be a gamer. I consider myself to be kinky and I consider myself to be poly.
And we’re gonna go over all those terms over this podcast, [00:02:00] which we have brilliantly called, uh, kinky nerded. Poly, poly.
M: Yeah. K P
G: K P. Let’s see, I I’ve considered myself to be a gamer since I was a teenager though. I was mostly playing video games at that point. And then I search as I got, as I got older, I sort of transitioned more into board games and now I play mostly board games.
I still play the occasional video game. Although I found my, my taste in video games is drifted further and further away from like sort of mainstream, triple a titles with maybe like the exception of like third act, third person, action, adventure games. Kink wise. I have been in the kink scene for about five years.
At this point, I gone to the kink scene because a girl broke my heart. [00:03:00]
M: we’re gonna have to hear that story at some point. Yeah.
G: At some point much, much later on after we’ve become worldwide success so that everybody can hear my heartache. . and then about a year to a year and a half after I was in kink partner and I decide to start experimenting with poly.
It was something we’ve been discussing for a while, both done a considerable amount of research about it and decided that it was the correct next step for us. And so I guess I’ve been probably for about four to five years. And if the kink has been six years. Yeah. So I think that. Explains my history in brief G
How about you? M do you want to give us the, the colon of you?
M: Yeah, so, well, I’m M and I like going by initials, you know, because it’s like kind of mysterious and. Also, it’s kinda like gender neutral and that [00:04:00] kind of fits my, my gender identity pretty much most of the time. So Emma’s pretty good for me.
Yeah. So I guess for, you know, our listeners to just give a little bit of background, I’m assigned female at birth, I just started transitioning in, uh, December of 2017. And I sort of decided on that through, you know, the. six years, which kind of corresponds with my journey in the kink scene. I always felt a little bit weird with, uh, being female identified, but I didn’t really know how I felt weird about it.
And I didn’t find that terminology until I joined the kink scene. Um, which as soon as I turn 18, I was like, I need to be part of this community. This is what I need to be doing with my life. And that was both for good and for bad. I think that there’s some, you know, some positives to jumping right in, and there’s some negatives to jumping right into.
So overall, you know, I’ve been in the king scene for about six years [00:05:00] and I’ve been teaching pretty much after I got involved. I started teaching almost right away, became a king presenter presented at difference kink conventions, um, for different groups. And I also do some one-on-one teaching too. Um, so teaching is definitely part of kink for me.
I’m a boot black, which is one of the first things I learned in the scene. And we’re, we will talk more about boot blacking later, go into some more, uh, details. But. Besides kink. I am also poly and we’re also gonna be looking at what, what that actually means. But for me, I’ve been poly probably longer than I’ve been really involved in the kink scene.
And again, the kink scene just gave me the language for it. So I think ever since I was about 14, I sort of knew I had this capacity to love multiple people at the same time. And then I didn’t necessarily want to value one relationship over another. So the king community also led me down into the poly community.
And now I have the, that terminology for that. I do [00:06:00] have several, you know, uh, serious partners and play partners and all sorts of other kinds of relationships. So poly, and then I’m also a bit of a nerd and, and a geek. And we’ll talk about the difference between those things. I guess, if depending on, if, if you see that there’s a difference between them.
G: Yeah. So I guess now that we’ve introduced ourselves, we can now talk. About what the listeners are actually listening to . Yeah. So this podcast is the latest version of an idea I’ve had for a while of essentially combining sort of my three main identities into one thing that I could educate the world about.
I initially thought this would be like a blog. I also thought about a YouTube series, but I didn’t really want my. Face out there. and then I start, I [00:07:00] think about a month ago at this point, like I thought about him being a good podcasting partner
M: for whatever reason. I don’t know.
G: and I decided to ask M if there would like to start a podcast and then M said,
M: Heck.
Yeah. Or something. I don’t know. Some equivalent that, what did I say? I don’t know,
G: said moments spot here. Uh, you said, you’d been thinking about, you’d been talking with, you’ve been talking with X earlier, earlier about it, uh, like either the day before. Oh, about podcasting. Yeah. About podcasting. So. Uh, now we’re here a month later sitting in my closet.
M: yes. Uh, in fact, the amazing quote that led us to come into this closet is, uh, what was it again? So where are we gonna do this in your closet? .
G: Oh, thank goodness. My closet [00:08:00] is big enough to do this. it
M: is a pre pretty decently sized closet.
G: Yes. So this is a podcast that’s gonna be talking about these three identities of the, or subcultures, the kink, nerdy, and poly.
And there’s gonna be a little bit of an education focus as I sort of want this to be sort of. Uh, introductory conversation into these worlds, uh, so that, you know, if somebody has just finished reading 50 shades of gray, they can hopefully find this and learn stuff that’s better than 50 shades of gray.
M: Yeah. I would say that the education is definitely important to both of us. So yeah.
G: So now that we know what the podcast is about, I think it’s time to define our terms, which is what we decide the first episode would be about. I think the first term that I wanted to define [00:09:00] is subcultures. So, um, what do you think a subculture is?
M: What a wonderful question we were. We were literally just talking about this a little bit earlier, so yeah, I feel like it’s a, it’s a culture within a culture. You know, kind of is the definition, right? Yeah. And, and that culture is still subject to the rules and regulations and kind of norms of the overarching culture.
Okay. Is kind of housed within that culture. Yeah. So whatever rules kinda apply to the large culture sort of apply to the smaller culture. And I think just what makes the subculture unique is that they might add on some things that the other culture necessarily. Engage in. So in this case, you know, if we were talking about the kink culture, there are certain like rules and regulations that are specific to the kink community, certain terminology, certain mannerisms, certain etiquettes that maybe people in the kink community might know that people in the general populace don’t know.
G: Yeah. I do think part. Part of being a [00:10:00] subculture is breaking certain norms and rules that are part of the regular culture. Otherwise it would just be the culture, right. You know, at kink events, you can just go around naked. And that’s something that you can’t do at a normal cultural event. Right.
M: But it’s still contrastive to that larger culture.
So for example, if the larger culture didn’t have that rule about going around naked, then maybe we wouldn’t even be remarking upon it because it would just be such a normal thing. So it’s not necessarily that the subculture can’t go against the norms. I think it’s going to go against the norms in some sense, but it’s that we can even say, like, we can be contrastive about it and say, Why is the kink community, you know, doing this yes.
Sort of thing, or why is it considered different from the overarching culture?
G: Yes, I think it’s also important to note that there are subcultures within subcultures. Oh yeah. Uh, uh, you know, very much inception, like. So when we talk about sort of the broader either kink or, uh, [00:11:00] nerd community, that there are various subcultures within those communities.
Absolutely. And, uh, you know, it’s turtles all the way down. I’m sure there are even smaller cultures within like the subcultures, but, uh, before we go full inception, , let’s go talk about the three sort of broad subcultures that we’re gonna be talking about. Okay. And we’re gonna go by the initials in the podcast, starting off with kinky.
So. M what is kink to you?
M: oh, I’ve been thinking about this, cuz it’s a difficult question, right? Like what is kink? And I think before we start, even here, we should say that like everybody’s definitions of these are gonna look a little bit different and it’s totally okay. If you define kink in a different way than we are defining it here, correct?
We’re not here to gate. Keep we’re just here to. Express how we view these things.
G: Yes. In fact, I [00:12:00] have a bullet point that explicitly says anti gate keeping .
M: Yeah. So it’s important that we are not gate gatekeepers here. So, um, all means take what you want from this podcast, but it’s not the law of kink or poly or nerdy culture.
Yes. So kink for me, I think, is anything that is going to be something that deviates from that. The norm of the broader culture in terms of, I would say attraction interaction, because I used to view it as being deviating from the norm in terms of sexual behavior. Yes. But now, because I know like I’m also asexual and that kink is not always sexual for me.
It’s certainly not even sexual for people who are asexual. Yes. People who do experience sexual attraction. Um, and sometimes it’s more Sensual or sometimes it’s about the emotional connection. And so [00:13:00] I’m just seeing it as a bending, a twisting, a deviation of whatever that interaction that attraction looks like.
It’s going to be kind of deviating in that way. Something that is different. Within a, uh, relational
G: context. Okay. And for our listeners who may not know what allosexual means, I
M: just defined it. Oh, okay. But you can go ahead and
G: define it. So allosexual means somebody who is interested in sex.
M: No, no, no. Allosexual is someone who experiences what they consider to be, uh, normal or typical sexual attraction. Yes. And it’s a spectrum,
G: of course. Yes. Like many things. It resists simplicity and is complicated.
M: Very
G: complicated. So now that we’ve talk- I guess for me, kink, uh, sort of refers to very specific desires or wants of an intimate nature.
If that makes sense. [00:14:00] This is not. Uh, admittedly, there are probably some people who don’t play this way, but for me, like I need to have like some sort of connection with the person that I’m playing with. No matter what I’m doing, whether that’s like a boots, stomping scene or a knife play scene, I’m doing something with a person I’m trying to get a specific, a specific reaction from them, whether that’s fear or pleasure or.
Discussed, you know, I’m trying to get something out of them, which you really can’t get in other forms of interaction. Like you can’t, you can’t go to like your book club and like, Make your friend afraid. right.
M: Um, and of course it’s coming down to consent too, right? Yes. But that’s very important. We will have probably a whole episode dedicated just to consent.
We’ll probably
G: have multiple episodes about consent. Yeah. So
M: there’s definitely something consensual about the nature of [00:15:00] tank
G: here. Yes. Yes. There’s a very, I don’t go around.
M: Uh, making helpless, innocent people on the sidewalk, afraid. Yeah. Um, they’ll just go like start to hurt people, right?
G: Like, yeah. It’s in fact, I, I, I have to have some form of like relationship with them.
Like even if it’s just like, you know, we’ve been talking for a couple of days and we think we might be interested in each other as play partners. I, you know, I would, you know, I it’s. For a very long time, you know, I was trying to figure out what Le what was the difference between what I do and like what a bad guy in a movie does.
And the difference is that, you know, I don’t do it. Why I do it for pleasure. I don’t do it to anybody who walks past me. I do it to people who are okay with me doing it to them and get their own form of [00:16:00] pleasure. Yeah. Yeah. I hope that made sense. I think it
M: did. Okay. Did we wanna define a little bit more specifically, like BDSM?
G: Yeah, I think so. I feel like BDSM is sort of. The gateway to kink. If that makes sense. Like if people, I think if somebody like typed in kink into Google, like the first thing would type would, that would pop up would be like the Wikipedia Wikipedia entry for BDSM.
M: I think that it’s an interesting linguistic note too here, because I feel like BDSM is dropping out of the lingo.
Yes. Dropping out of the language a little bit. And kink is sort of. In compassing, everything because kink kind of includes BDSM and other things.
G: Yes, you can. Everything with BDSM is, is kinky, but not everything that’s kinky is BDSM. Right. And I, I do agree with you that the sort of BDSM terminology is [00:17:00] going away slowly and sort of people.
People are getting more people are starting to use the kink terminology more because it is more inclusive of the various things that don’t necessarily fall into BDSM. And what does BDSM include?
M: so by the strict definition, right? It’s uh, it’s kind of three components. So it’s, even though it’s four letters, there’s actually three different components.
Yes. And a lot of the times it’s defined. Bondage and discipline. Yes. The B and the D D and the D and then the D and the S are together also. And that’s dominance and submission. Yes. And then we have the S and M, which is sadism and masochism, or sometimes just sadomasochism, depending on your yeah. How you phrase it, how you phrase it.
And so that’s kind of like, for me, that’s kind of broken down into the bondage and discipline part is like a very specific act like bondage could be rope bondage. It could be. Leather bondage or however you wanna see, you know, some kind of [00:18:00] restraint. Yeah. Discipline could be relating to the specific act of positive or negative reinforcement, for example, and these types of things, punishment and reward and all that.
Mm-hmm, the DS being the dominance and submission goes into the power exchange and more of the formalities or the controls that are exchanging between people.
G: Yes. I feel like this is the. This is a part that, well, no, I feel like both the Dean, the S and the S and the M are the parts that people are the most leery of.
I think it’s relatively normal in American culture to do something in the bedroom. That’s a little bit kinky. Like, let me get some pink fuzzy handcuffs, or, uh, you know, let’s do a little bit of role playing, right. I really think it’s the. The dominant and submiss mission and the sadism and the masochism, which sort of makes [00:19:00] sort of normal American culture, very leery of the kink culture though.
That is somewhat going away again, thanks to 50 shades of
M: gray. somewhat, thanks to that. Yeah. You know, although there is like a deep history. with kink, which of course could be again, its own episode. And therefore you’re probably going to cut out everything I’m going to say. Okay. But I also feel like gay male culture.
Yes. Leather culture, including other like pansexual communities, or even like, you know, we can look at, uh, communities and spaces. That were tied to early L G B T scenes. Yes. That also welcomed kink and had kink. And so it’s not totally separate from
G: yes, there’s definitely, there is definitely a rise of kink before the 50 shades of gray movie came out.
And I haven’t, I hadn’t thought about it before, but you’re right in that the sort of welcoming of alternative [00:20:00] sexualities in the LGBTQ scene. I think allowed that to sort of grow and flourish. In fact, I think a lot of these sort of imagery we associate with dominance and submission, you know, the whole black leather look came from the gay sort of leather culture.
If I’m not mistaken. Yeah. Gay leather
M: culture, for sure.
G: The whole sort of black leather biker look, which exactly am not into but you know, it is. I think when somebody starts talking about BDSM to, you know, a normal American that’s sort of the first image that would pop into their mind is somebody sort of dressed all in black
M: leather.
Although I guess now, because of 50 shades, maybe now the kids I should rephrase that. Yes. Maybe now the, uh, man, how do I put.
G: Maybe now the normal Americans?
M: No, but [00:21:00] like the, not the younger Americans, but I’m saying like these people who are just now discovering kink. Okay. Coming the people who are currently coming into their kink identities.
Yes. Maybe now they don’t. View, maybe when they hear BDSM, they don’t think black leather. Maybe now they would think of Christian Gray in a suit. Yeah. Maybe. I don’t know if that’s the image people are getting now these days when they hear BDSM, it could be,
G: I have no
M: idea. Um, actually that’s a question for our listeners.
Yes. We would love to hear from you about when you hear BDSM. Like, is there a certain image that comes to mind?
G: Yes, that would be great. If you have any questions, please send them to us. . So what is the scene, which I think is separate from both kink, subculture and BDSM .
M: Um, well, I’m curious now, since you just said that you see that it’s different [00:22:00] from king subculture.
I mean, I feel like the scene is maybe, oh, it’s really hard to define, right? Like for me, like maybe what comes to mind is. Going to mus and going to play parties and like, sort of like your active community, your active. Yeah.
G: I, I imagine it as people who go out to events and who. Participate in person in the culture.
I think there’s a large portion of the kink subculture that just does their stuff in their bedroom and it never leaves their bedroom.
M: Um, that sounds to be, I would think that would be the
G: norm. Yes, I. and then, you know, there are people who will do stuff online, but will not do stuff in real life. Uh, so I, when I think of the scene, I think of like activities you actually go to mus and, uh, play party events.
M: And I think I’ve heard this term used, I’m also part of the HNO community. And I [00:23:00] feel like people in that community often do things online. And so we might actually refer to like the online. Yes, for example, sort of different
G: you wanna take the next one about what is
M: a fetish? Yes. Yeah. Fetish is a very interesting word.
I think how I’ve heard it defined by people who are fetishists. Yes. And I would consider myself to be a fetishist with some things as well. Okay. It would be that a specific object or part of something. or a specific, I would say even a very specific activity. Yes. Provide someone with some sort of sexual gratification.
G: I feel like I would largely agree with that definition. I, and. There, there are definitely things that I have fetishes about [00:24:00] biting is sort of the first thing that comes to
M: mind, the very specific activities. Yes. It’s not just, we’re not just talking sadism at this point, which is got sort of like a kink.
Yes. Now we’re just talking very specific activity biting. Yes.
G: And, oh, I, I get a certain amount of pleasure just from the act of biting. and for our listeners who are new to the king scene, when I say biting someone, I do not mean I bite to break a person’s skin. I’m just putting pressure down and not breaking the skin.
Cuz I’ve seen, I’ve seen that, uh, reaction sometimes
M: don’t go around just biting off people’s skin. Yes. We would ask you to refrain from
G: that. There’s there’s a lot. Consent and medical issues involved there. So please don’t do that. . So when I, when I’m talking about biting, I’m referring specifically to the act of biting someone to the point that it causes a certain amount of pain or pleasure, but never to the [00:25:00] point of breaking somebody’s skin, which.
For our listeners who are new to the king scene, you can be surprised how much the human skin, how much human skin can
M: take. . Yeah, it’s quite a lot. I have experienced it from the, uh, bottom side. Yeah. And actually let’s just interject here. Bottom here refers to that. I would be receiving the action. Yes.
And if we refer to a top or someone who’s doing the topping, uh, that refers to the person that’s giving the action. Yes. And I thought it was important to interject here because we often refer to topping or bottoming.
G: Yes. And I think it’s also important to note that some people define themselves by these.
Like some people will define themselves in the kink scene as tops. Some people define themselves as bottom. And some people define themselves as switches, which is a person who will be willing to either top or bottom, depending on the scene,
M: or even switch within a, a, a singular scene.
G: Oh, yes. There’s been a lot of [00:26:00] interesting wrestling.
Wrestling switching scenes. do you have a particular fetish that you would like to talk about serve as an example,
M: specific fetish? Yeah. I think that my specific fetish might have to be with boots, which is sort of how I got into boot blacking. Oh yes. Um, of course now I’m gonna interject with. Boot blocking information, boot blocking is the Karen keeping of leather.
Yes. Uh, it doesn’t have to be just boots. We, we work on vests, pants, toys, whatever. Um, and they don’t just have to be black either. So it’s a bit of a misnomer. again.
G: I think it carries over from
M: the, it carries on from actually several different communities, not just the, the leather community. Oh, okay. Yeah, we can talk about that more on another episode too, but, um, so I’m kind of like the way that boots look a lot.
And I would say that I [00:27:00] fetishize them to an extent, and it’s not that when I see them, I like instantly have an orgasm. I feel like, yes, it’s not even that. It’s a very intense feeling. Mm-hmm of, um, sexual gratification or attraction. But that when I see a nice pair of boots, I’m just like, Hmm, that’s nice.
And I’m sort of, I just like the idea of these boots doesn’t matter. The per I know it kind of sounds awful, but it doesn’t really matter. The person in the boots.
G: Yes. I mean, I feel like normal American culture will has sort of acceptable fetishes. Like, uh, it is okay for men to fetishize breasts and asses it’s okay.
For women to fetishize like, well, muscle muscles. Yeah. And then I think there are sort of fetishes that sort of go in and out of Vogue. Like I think bearded men were in for a while and I think now bearded men are sort of on the downhill. trend of sort of attraction. Right. But that’s yeah, but that’s just me [00:28:00] sort of absorb, uh, observing pop culture, but yeah, there’s still like very, very normal, acceptable fetishes that normal American culture.
I feel like I should come up with a better term than normal American culture. Cause
M: there’s really no such thing as normal
G: American culture. Yes. For the, for the average American, does that make sense? Typical for the typical American, it is okay to fetishize like, you know, breaths or the ass, or I think even some people, I think it’s fairly acceptable to like fetishize a woman’s legs.
I’m trying to think of other hair, I think is another sort of acceptable fetish. I know there’s definitely a fetish for like blonde women or
M: redheads. Yeah. Redheads for sure. Yes. Being a redhead myself. I am quite often fetishized and it’s not always welcome, right? Yes. That’s another thing too, is when it’s somebody’s body part specifically an American culture kind [00:29:00] of says like, it’s okay to do this.
Yes. We get into a lot of, you know, unacceptable fetishization. Yeah. So.
G: all right. So I think we’ve firmly covered fetishes. We did. And if our listeners have any questions again, you can email LS, please email us. I feel like we’ve already covered, we’ve already covered this. We’ve already covered subcultures within subcultures, but it might be nice to just list like what some of the subcultures within the kink scene might be, uh, would be, I think rope is definitely a subculture, a very
M: big subculture there’s subculture within that subculture.
Yeah, of course. We mentioned that. You have like ponies and puppies listed, but I think, you know, pet play as a whole can just be kind of grouped together. I
G: mean, pet play can, but I feel like, like I’ve noticed very distinct differences between people who play as ponies and people who play as puppies. If that makes sense.
M: Well, some, some ponies identify as being within the pet play community and some don’t. [00:30:00] Yeah. And same with puppy play. I think too. and yeah, we’ve mentioned leather a couple of times, so I feel like leather community is, can be considered a subculture, but again, there’s that which came first, right? Yeah.
G: So like we said earlier, there are plenty of subcultures within the broader kink subculture.
And I think we’ve firmly covered the first letter. In our podcast. Wow.
M: Uh, amazing.
G: and so now we’ll go on to the second letter, which is the N for nerdy. So M
M: yes, G O G.
G: I wonder how else she is. O
M: is that a phrase. I, I don’t
G: think so. I think I just made that up. Yeah. I think you just made that up. Uh, so, um, what,
M: geez.
Sorry. [00:31:00] All right, go ahead.
G: so, um, let’s talk about the nerdy subculture. All right. I think my first question is, is, is nerd still a subculture? Because I feel like it’s pretty much part of the mainstream culture at this point. Though there are definitely people who identify with being a nerd or a geek more than others. I think we’ve sort of seen, you know, between the rise of tech companies and between, and the superhero genres sort of taking over the cinema sort of nerd and geek culture is now just a part of American culture at this point.
So do you think it still counts as its own subculture?
M: I would say that probably geeky community is still a little bit more of a
G: subculture. Yeah. So you see, there’s you think there’s a difference between like being a nerd and being a geek? I
M: think that it’s up to the individual, how they want to [00:32:00] identify.
Okay. But I do personally see a difference between the two. All right. So for me, like nerdy is sort of like, you know, uh, fandoms that I’m super into video games, board games. Um, that sort of thing I didn’t get to talk about earlier, like my own interest in being a nerd. But for me, it’s definitely more like, you know, video games and now, you know, slowly getting into the board game community.
And it seems like those things are very mainstream. Like you were saying. Yes, pretty much, you know, almost everyone that I interact with. Can say that they play some type of game or that they’re into some sort of Phantom or they’re into some sort of comic or they’re into some sort of whatever that seems to be pretty nerdy.
And also, I kind of like your note here about. You know, people can be nerds for pretty much
G: anything. Yes. Uh, so the bullet point that M would just point to is talking about John [00:33:00] Green’s definition of a nerd, which is somebody who loves something UN ironically and enthusiastically. So I feel like you can be a nerd about many different things.
I argue most football fans are nerds for football. If you track your, if you’re into fantasy football and like are tracking the stats of individual football players, like I think you’re a nerd for football and I think that’s fine. Um, absolutely. I don’t, I don’t think anybody should use nerd in a derogatory sense.
Right. Because it’s just, I love this thing and I don’t mind showing my love for this thing. You know, I, you know, I love star wars. I love star Trek. You know, there’s so many, so many cultural cultural things that I mind showing that I love them. And I think it’s very important, especially with some of the things that have been [00:34:00] going on to try to keep in mind that being a narrative is about showing love for a thing and not showing hate for a thing, uh, hate because of the thing.
Right. And, uh, just because somebody else loves the same thing that you love, uh, does not diminish the thing that you are loving. Right.
M: I also think like, uh, here, I’m certainly nerdy about kink. So, uh, some of this plays into,
G: yes. I mean, part of the reason why I’m, I’m doing this, I want to do this. Something like this is because I feel like there’s a Venn diagram of.
Of people who are kinky, uh, poly and nerdy. And there’s a large section in the middle of that Venn diagram.
M: And by well, large, I mean, it is still niche, right? It’s still like
G: small. Yes. I mean, obviously the, the nerd part of the circle would be very large, very big and. [00:35:00] The section that fit in the ven in the intersection of the Venn diagram would be very small in comparison to the rest of the nerd circle.
But I have, in my experience like people who are nerdy are much more likely to embrace sort of the. Kink and poly lifestyle, then people who are not nerdy.
M: And I would say the opposite is true too. Maybe even if you’re kinky and you’re poly, maybe you are really into exploring new things and you’re really into getting into new hobbies because that’s sort of part of the kink and poly communities too.
G: Yes. So there’s this very large intersection. And, you know, I definitely think there are people I can think of who are, who are nerds for poly and will go to polyamorous conventions. And basically one of their primary identities is being polyamorous, which is awesome. Yes. [00:36:00] Now what, so we’ve said that. you can be nerdy about almost anything.
If, if you really want, you could be nerdy about air, traffic control patterns. What are some of the things that we in particular are nerdy about for myself? I, like I mentioned earlier, I’m really into board games. I have a lot of board games I go to GenCon fairly regularly, which is a large board gaming convention in Indianapolis for listeners who don’t know.
I. Still like video games. Um, but I do feel like my interest in video games has been waning over the years, partially because like the time commitment for video games. I think part of the reason why I like board games a lot now is there’s a really nice social aspect to it that can be mixed in with the game, which I feel like is largely missing from video games though.
You can [00:37:00] still sort of get that aspect of like, you know, playing like a game together. , but I still feel like board games are better for that than a video game is movies. I, you know, there’s a lot of movies I watch, especially in the Marvel movies. I’m not as big a film GA you know, I know some of the sort of important films, but not, you know, I’m, I’m getting more into sort of looking at the.
And sort of understanding how film is constructed only just now, but, you know, I love me some superhero films. , it’s just nice to see like, you know, superheroes going around and just saving the day .
M: Does it inspire you to wanna go out and save the day?
G: I think inspires me to try to do the right thing and I.
And I try to do the right thing, like in my, in my everyday life, you know, I, I try to help people when I [00:38:00] can, but, you know, I try, you know, I try to remember that it’s okay to be a little bit selfish, to take care of myself as well, because, you know, if I just burn myself out, nobody’s helped by that deep. Uh, yeah, we’re probably gonna talk about a lot of deep stuff.
books. Uh, I, I tend to read mostly, uh, science fiction, fancy books and RPGs. I’m really big into RPGs, uh, for listeners who don’t know, RPG stands for role playing games. And it’s essentially, uh, you get a group of people together to sort of play a game of. you know, like how kids used to play like banks and robbers as kids RPGs is banks and robbers, but with more rules, Um, lots
M: of rules, lots of rules, sometimes too
G: many rules, sometimes too many rules.[00:39:00]
And, uh, the rules are sort of there to just not have, you know, there was always that one kid that was like, you know, oh, I’ve got this laser. I’m gonna shoot you with my laser. I was like, oh, I just happened to have this laser deflecting shield so the rules are kind of there to sort of make sure that everybody has a good time and sort of that there can be a sense of danger in the.
That uh, happens in the RPG. I’d also consider myself to be a nerd about politics. I’m not sure how much about politics are gonna talk about on this podcast, because that can be a very contentious subject and can attract the wrong sort of attention. I do I do. I do read a lot of, you know, articles about foreign policy decisions and I do pay, you know, close attention to sort of the political, uh, political mood and political moves of the country.[00:40:00]
Um, the people involved in those. And I could just keep on going, but I’m just gonna turn the floor over to M and, and see what M has to.
M: well, thanks, G uh, G thanks. I know I’m just gonna play on that so often.
G: I’m, I’m sure I’ll never get tired of hearing it. You will not.
M: So I think I, I started a little bit earlier.
I really like video games. Uh, that’s sort of my main thing right now. I’m really into J R P D J RPGs, which for listeners are Japanese role playing games. And these are
G: a video game genre, which is separate video
M: genre from the video table. Top RPG video. Yeah. Separate from table top RPG. And so I really enjoy those specifically the tales series, uh, tales of Asperia is one of my fear games.
I’m really excited right now because they’re finally releasing the like full edition that was released in Japan. Uh, many years ago is like finally coming to the United States. Um, so I’m like [00:41:00] super excited. And then in terms of board games, it’s where I’m just now starting to get into it. And honestly, there are too many rules for me sometimes with board games.
but I’m making an effort to learn and to try to learn more complex board. Even though it’s very frustrating. Sometimes
G: I promise never to force you to play TWI Imperium.
M: Okay. I might torture myself to play that, so. Okay.
G: As long as it’s your choice, I’m never gonna force it on you. Yeah.
M: We’re all about consent here.
Yes. And, and you mentioned RPGs, you know, we’re all playing games and I’ve tried to play D and D a couple times and I’ve, I have enjoyed it to an extent, but I think that the setting hasn’t been quite right for me. Hopefully I’ll be getting more into that in a bit of a different setting. Yes. Uh, the near future.
G: Yeah. Do you wanna talk about that a little bit or is that, is that
M: a [00:42:00] future episode? I think that’s a future episode because I have a lot of thoughts about it and I feel like it’s gonna just, yeah. Keep on, keep on coming all. So then I think you mentioned like movies and books. So in terms of films, I’m not very nerdy about films.
Okay. Um, I have some films that I enjoy, but like, you know, the superhero films. Okay. They can be. And there are a couple that I, I have enjoyed, but they’re not really my thing. Okay. Um, I’m way more passionate about reading and books. Definitely. Science fiction. Cyber punk is a big one for me. Dystopian, uh, genres tend to be the big ones and I also like just regular old fiction.
Okay. It’s like simple. Simple stuff about,
G: about farmer farmer, G farmer G and his imaginary
M: corn and the imaginary corn. Yes. Oh, and I’m, I am also a little bit nerdy about podcasts, so, uh, okay. Yeah.
G: All right. Uh, so I think that firmly covers the middle initial [00:43:00] of our podcast title. So now on the last initial, the P for poly or polyamory, So I feel like you’re more qualified for this one than I am.
So do you want, you wanna start us off on this?
M: Well, it’s hard to really give a strict definition. Yes. As we’ve seen with all of these, there
G: is a long standing joke that if you ask three people, what the definition of poly three poly people, what the definition of polyamory is you’ll get five different answers.
M: yes. Uh, yeah, that sounds accurate. So for me, polyamorous really just means like literally many loves it’s having multiple consensual. Romantic emotional sexual or, you know, et C relationships. And they can be, they don’t all have to be sexual. They don’t have to all have to be romantic. They don’t all have to be emotional, but many of them will have [00:44:00] one or more of these qualities to them.
And so it’s different than being like a swinger, cuz that’s what I get all the time. When I come out as poly, I’m very open as being poly and a lot of people are like, oh, so you’re a swinger. Uh, no, me and my partners don’t really exchange sex, sexual partners and swingers are totally valid. Yes.
G: So I feel like the large difference between, uh, swingers and the swinger community and the polyamory community is at polyamory community is about forming multiple relationships while the swing community is more about having multiple sexual partners and.
actually trying to establish relationships, uh, emotional and romantic relationship beyond the sexual. Is that, do you think that’s largely accurate? That’s kind
M: of what I get. I think that some swingers might feel that they do form emotional bonds with the people that they swing with. Yeah. I think it’s emotionally just the duration and the kind of like the kind of activities that.
Engage in, [00:45:00] from my understanding of being a swinger, because I’m not one,
G: yes, there are somewhat separate spaces. Right. There are, there are certain there’s at least one swing club. I know of that is separate from the kink club that I know of. So they’re, they are separate subcultures and they have separate spaces.
M: Yeah. And I think that when we, oh, the next question is like, what is the difference between polyamory and cheating? That’s like the next question. So the first thing I get is like, oh, are you a swinger? And the second question I get is like, oh, do your partners know. Yes. Do they know? Oh my gosh. Yes. They know all of my partners know about each other.
G: Yes. polyamory. I feel like no matter what definition you’re in definition that you are using requires a large amount of transparency and communication. You, you date other people and your [00:46:00] partner knows that you are dating other people. And those partners know about. each other, whether they are friendly with each other or even know each other, that’s entirely separate question, but if you’re polyamorous and you’re dating multiple people, the other people know that you’re dating other people.
Yes . Yes.
M: Um, so that’s like a main difference between polyamory and cheating. Now that’s not to say if you are polyamorous, you can still cheat.
G: Yes, because cheating is a violation of trust and boundaries. And when a normal monogamous relationship, the trust and boundary is that you are not supposed to sleep with other people
M: and, or not have even not go on dates
G: with other people and not even go.
Yeah, not don’t even go on dates with other people. And while that’s not a clear cut boundary in polyamory, you can still violate. A boundary and betray trust [00:47:00] in a polyamory relationships.
M: Yeah. Even if you agree, you know, with your partner, that we’re gonna inform each other about all of our other partners, and then you decide, oh, I’m gonna go have a partner.
Uh, and I’m not gonna tell I’m this specific partner. I’m just not gonna tell my part, my, my other partner about then that’s, you know, still violating that trust. It’s still cheating. Yes.
G: All right. And now I think it’s important to get to some of the terminology or jargon. Poly people use, especially, uh metamore and poly.
So for me, a metamore, as I understand it is it is your partner’s partner. So if M has a partner X I’m in a relationship with M I’m metamours with X and X is metamours with me. And I think that’s fairly clear cut [00:48:00] and a poly cule do you want to, uh, no, you go, okay. You go for G a poly cue is essentially just a interconnected group of poly people, uh, who have relationships with each other. as you can imagine, this can get pretty complicated, pretty fast, because especially, you know, each person is gonna have different relationships, uh, with each other person and different forms of poly are also probably gonna be involved because not as we state earlier, lots of people have lots of different definitions of poly.
So polycule just, they’re a large, large interconnected web essentially of relationships that. Our center, you know, there’s usually like a center group and then sort of relationships go branch jaw from that center group. I feel
M: like, yeah, it’s sort of almost like your family tree except instead of a family tree. It’s like a family web. Yes.
G: And I [00:49:00] think, I think it’s important to note that one of the reasons why these sort of poly networks form is that the, because polyamory is a subculture though. I do think it’s gaining more traction. I’ve certainly seen a. Articles in various like the New York times and Washington post about it.
Um, more than, you know, when I was a teenager, it’s still very much a subculture. So the people who are willing to the dating pool or the pool of partners available in polyamory tends to be rather small and the same goes. For kink, like it’s, I feel like I have a pretty good grasp of, of who’s in this city.
Who’s in my scenes, if that makes sense. And so molecules tend to be, there tends to be a lot of. overlapping relationships. And then there is conversion. I feel like this is [00:50:00] your specialty M so I would, I would not do it justice that’s
M: okay. Conversion is an amazing concept. And I feel like a lot of people, when they talk about polyamory, they’re like, oh, don’t you get jealous?
They say the, the J word jealousy. Oh, there’s jealousy. You must be jealous. There is jealousy that occurs within polyamory and jealousy is a normal emotion. Um, and it is often indicative of something, you know, an insecurity or something in the person. Um, who’s experiencing the jealousy that they can resolve normally on their own or with the help, you know, of one of their,
G: with a little conversation labor.
M: Yeah, absolutely. Um, consensual emotional labor, of course. And, but there’s also this other concept, which is conversion, and we don’t hear a lot about it in mainstream society. So it’s important to hear it. And I really feel it on a deep level. And for me, conversion is it’s not really the opposite of jealousy because you can [00:51:00] feel jealous and comparison at the same time.
But for me, it’s that joy or the happiness that you feel when you see your partner. Being happy. And in this case specifically with someone else doing something else, or you can feel happy knowing that they’re going on a date with someone else. Yes. And this is a hard concept for people to wrap their heads around, but really just think about it.
Like, imagine if you’re having a hard time with this, imagine your partner eating that food. They really love. and you can just like see their face. Yeah. And they can just get
G: really. And you, you just get happy if they’re they’re so happy about it. Oh my gosh. There’s so even though you hate tiramisou like, you’re just happy that they’re happy with the
M: tiramisu they’re just loving C out on this tiramisu.
Yes, tiramisou as G says, but that’s not how that word is pronounced . So that’s compersion it’s really that, that joy at seeing one’s partner, experiencing joy with someone. Yes.
G: And that [00:52:00] is polyamory and we’ve now covered. We’ve covered everything. We’ve now covered all three letters in our podcast title, and now we can actually start doing a podcast.
M: Yeah. So I guess that’s, that’s it for this one, right?
G: Yes. That’s it. You know, I guess we’ll, we’ll record another one in a couple weeks.
If you’d like to get in touch with either myself or M you can tweet us@kandppodcastoremailusatkinkydotnerdydotpolygmail.com.
If I ever wrote like a lot erotic literature, I decided my pending was gonna be Gregory tenant, Gregory
M: tenant. What, uh, inspires that?
G: Well, David Tenet, because he is an incredibly sexy man and Gregory Peck [00:53:00] and I think is also an incredibly sexy man though. A different kind of sexy.
M: I don’t have opinions on sexy men.
I don’t find any man sexy except.
Jack Black
G: I forgot about the Jack Black thing.
M: Yep. That’s it? Yeah, he’s very sexy.
