The intersection of sexuality, mental health, and entrepreneurship is a unique and challenging space. For professionals in the field, creating a thriving practice and reaching those who need their services often requires navigating significant barriers, from societal stigma to financial constraints. Leah Spasova, a psychologist and serial entrepreneur, has dedicated herself to overcoming these obstacles by fostering community and providing resources for other professionals in the industry.

The Challenges of Building a Community
Leah Spasova's journey began with the realization that many sexuality and relationship professionals work in isolation, struggling not only with the challenges of their practice but also with the business side of things. The stigma and censorship surrounding their work often exacerbate these difficulties, making it hard to connect with peers or reach potential clients. One of the primary challenges is the pervasive sense of shame and guilt around sexuality, which not only affects clients but also isolates professionals from one another. The lack of accessible, supportive communities leaves many feeling unsupported and overwhelmed, leading to high burnout rates and, ultimately, a shortage of qualified professionals in the field.

The Solution: The Sexpert Business Community
To combat these challenges, Leah founded the Sexpert Business Community, an organization designed to connect professionals, share resources, and provide support for building successful practices. This community offers networking events, workshops, and meetings where professionals can exchange ideas, collaborate on projects, and support each other in navigating the complex business aspects of their work. Additionally, Leah has launched Life’s Explicit, a platform that goes beyond a simple directory to actively promote professionals' services and products. By handling the marketing, advertising, and promotion that many professionals struggle with, Life’s Explicit allows them to focus on their core work, helping clients without the added burden of self-promotion.

Addressing Financial and Business Mindset Barriers
A recurring theme in Leah’s work is addressing the negative mindsets around money and business that are prevalent in the sexuality and relationship wellness industry. Many professionals, particularly women, have internalized societal messages that devalue their work, leading to undercharging and financial instability. Leah advocates for a shift in perspective, encouraging professionals to see their work as valuable and worthy of fair compensation. By embracing a more positive and proactive approach to business, professionals can build sustainable practices that not only support their livelihoods but also allow them to reinvest in their communities and create lasting change.

The Importance of Collaboration
One of the key takeaways from Leah’s approach is the power of collaboration. By working together, professionals can share knowledge, refer clients, and create a more resilient and supportive industry. This collaboration extends beyond just sharing resources; it also involves challenging the scarcity mindset that often pervades the field. Leah emphasizes that there is enough work to go around and that by supporting each other, professionals can expand their reach and impact.


Leah Spasova’s work is a vital contribution to the sexuality and relationship wellness industry. By building communities, addressing business mindset issues, and fostering collaboration, she is helping to create a more supportive and sustainable environment for professionals. This, in turn, allows these professionals to better serve their clients, ultimately leading to a healthier and more informed society. For those in the field looking to connect with like-minded professionals and build a thriving practice, Leah’s Sexpert Business Community and Life’s Explicit platform offer invaluable resources and support.


Key Concepts:
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• Sexpert Business Community
• Sexuality professional collaboration
• Overcoming censorship in sexual health
• Building a therapy practice
• Life’s Explicit platform
• Financial challenges in mental health
• Marketing for sex therapists
• Community in sexuality wellness
• Overcoming stigma in sex therapy
• Entrepreneurship in sexual health

Hello and welcome to Securing Sexuality, the podcast where we discuss the intersection of intimacy and information security. I'm Wolf Goerlich. He's a hacker and I'm Stefani Goerlich.

She's a sex therapist and together we're going to discuss what safe sex looks like in the digital age. Hey, do you know what my favorite thing is beyond podcasting tools that don't always work? I don't think I'm allowed to answer that publicly. My favorite PG thing. 

Community. What? Community. Okay. 

Yeah. I was going to say social media. So community counts.

Yeah. All about the community, all about the community. But as we've talked so often on this show, it is incredibly hard to form good community around the type of topics we talk about here.

This is true. We spend a lot of time talking about, writing about, warning people away from terrible communities. But I do like a good one when we find it.

Yeah, absolutely. And so I am excited for today's guest. We've got Leah Spasova, a psychologist specializing in sex and relationships. 

I think I'm already outnumbered in terms of both the psychology and the sex part. Her work is focused on helping people improve and future-proof their relationships and enjoy more fulfilling, intimate lives. She's also a serial entrepreneur. 

I get point for serial entrepreneur side. One more point on Wolf's side of this podcast. A serial entrepreneur dedicated to supporting the sexuality and relationship wellness field. 

And she runs the Sexpert Business Community and Life's Explicit, which is what we are here to talk about today. Leah, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for having me. 

It's a pleasure. I'm excited to have you because he's right. He is outnumbered. 

And there have been so many episodes where we have talked to hackers that it's nice to have another sex expert on for a change. Amazing. So let's start with the big question. 

Why is it so hard to form community around this topic? Well, where do we begin? The biggest one is shame, people being brought up with shame and guilt around sexuality and intimacy. And oftentimes, people have nobody that they can talk to about sex and intimacy. And when they go see a sex therapist, sex coach, relationship coach, this person is the first individual to ever listen to them openly, without judgment, to invite their troubles and questions into a session and support them. 

And unfortunately, a lot of people don't even know that we exist as sexperts. And they end up going to mainstream therapists. And mainstream therapists are not generally educated into the field of sex and relationships as much. 

They're more focused on anxiety, depression, these kind of like, everyday almost challenges that most people face. And that leaves them more vulnerable to more trouble down the line, just because they're not accessing the right help. So it's very difficult to first of all, open up, Google, search, and also find us, because we're massively censored.

That censorship has been an ongoing problem. I'm sure the folks that listen to our podcasts on a regular are tired of me complaining about this yet, but I will continue to complain until it's fixed. My practice has been permanently blocked on Instagram from advertising. 

I don't do anything explicit. I'm not, you know, selling anything or taking off anybody's clothes. I am just a social worker. 

And to your point, I continue to hold myself and my practice up as an example of online censorship, because even with all of the people that we know and strings that we can pull, it's been impossible to advertise kink affirming mental health care. And so I'm so glad that there are people like you out there that are working to combat that to provide alternatives to that. It's really needed and necessary.

No, I hear you. I've experienced censorship myself a lot. And it's absolutely heartbreaking that all the good work that we are trying to get across to people is just not reaching them.

We can't, we can't help. So what are you doing? What is your solution to the censorship crisis that is keeping people from building community amongst other professionals, keeping clients from finding the people that they would want in their lives? How do we fix it? What are you doing? The people that work to censor us work together. And we don't work together enough to fight censorship, to petition, and we don't support the few organizations that actually do something to fight censorship, especially in the US where it's way worse than it is in Europe and the rest of the world. 

And I had an interview with Danielle Kramer, who specializes in abortion care a couple of years ago, right before Roe v. Wade. And she basically said, like, the reason why these people are very successful is because they work together and they're not that many. We will genuinely outnumber them if we work together to fight for our rights, to fight against censorship.

But we don't. Most sexuality professionals work in isolation and struggle in isolation. And when I started my business, my private practice, I was that person. 

And it was by sheer luck and accident that I stumbled upon a couple of people that were open to talk about business and what works. They were also early days in their entrepreneurial journey as a sexpert. And we ended up organizing these kind of meetups and talking about what works, what doesn't work for us as professionals, and how we reach people without being banned, without being censored, and so forth. 

And that became the Sexpert Business Community. And it was an accidental thing. I did not intend it to be a business of its own right.

But people kept reaching out and turning up to the meetings and giving us a lot of feedback and questions and all of that. So now it's been five years since I started this. And I've seen a lot about the industry. 

And I can tell you a lot of it that we are struggling with can be fixed if we only work together. But we don't. I think that's a really good observation.

When I first started dating Stefani, well, before we got married, I was really used to very vibrant, not huge, but reasonably sized communities. Because I've started a couple, I belong to several. When you're in tech, when you're in software development, when you're in IT, when you're in hacking, you can throw a stone and find 30 people who show up for coffee to talk about their issues and what's working and what's not. 

As a matter of fact, poor Stefani got dragged to a couple of those meetups where she's like, just stop talking about tech. But anyways, it feels very much not the case in your world. And part of that, I suppose, is because of all the issues you mentioned. 

And also, I also have to imagine part of it is just because you guys are so busy. I mean, your calendars are always packed. So it almost seems like there's not even time sometimes to form community and connections. 

I think a lot of sexuality professionals are busy doing busy work, which does not really convert into paying clients or products that they develop and sell. And there's a massive struggle actually in the field for professionals to make a living. And over the past five years, I've seen too many drop out.

And I'm like, please don't. Because if you look at the mental health, which is the field I come from, if you look at mental health, every single Western country is fighting for psychologists everywhere. And for mental health professionals, because there's such shortages. 

In the UK, if you need a therapist or whatever, and you want to go through the National Health Service, you may wait up to two years. If you're lucky, and by lucky, I mean suicidal, you may get help in about two months time. So you can see how strained the mental health industry is.

And all these people that need our help end up trying to access mental health professionals who are not even qualified or trained to work with the challenges that they present. So the need is massive. But the problem is that a lot of sexuality professionals spend a lot of time doing busy work and not actually getting to clients and not actually getting clients that can fill their practice, support their work so they can stay in the industry. 

So I hear you, but it's more complex in that regard, from what I've seen. I definitely hear you when it comes to the people leaving the field. I spend more time than really is reasonable for any human being on Reddit.

And one of the subs that I hang out in is the therapist subreddit. And it just came up, I want to say either last night or this morning, somebody talking about how the ability to be in private practice is really a privilege, and how it is contingent on, for most people, having a partner whose job is going to provide insurance, having a partner at all, so you have a second income, the flexibility to wait it out while you build up a client panel or wait it out while you get paneled with insurance companies, the ability to have enough of a cushion that when you run into an insurance snag and there's a clawback, that doesn't mean that you can't make rent this month. And it was a really fascinating conversation because there were so many people saying, you know, that's why I stay in community mental health, or that's why I stay in the nonprofit world or in a group practice that takes 60% of my earnings. 

Because private practice is incredibly financially risky to do on your own. It is. And the problem is that a lot of people try to do their own marketing, promotion, advertising, all of like sales copy, all of it. 

And I'm like, you were not trained to do that. There are people who have spent their whole life studying marketing, advertising, search engine optimization, copywriting, etc. But because a lot of people start with a very low budget, and they want to start their practice with practically no money, they try to do it all.

And obviously, their website is terrible. Their copy is terrible. They run some ads, but they don't even know how to run them. 

So they end up spending copious amounts of time and money as well on things that don't work. So that's why it's really difficult to begin because most people just go like, well, I can't afford it. So I'll do it all on my own. 

And it flops. We've all seen our clients try to do it on their own. And then they come to you and they're like, oh, I really tried. 

And you see what they've been trying, and you're like, well, obviously, it's not going to work. I see all the mistakes. And that's the thing.

We preach to people, go and search professional health. But the irony is that professionals don't search professional help when it comes to their business needs. And also, there's a massive negative mindset around business and money in our industry, in the mental health and sex and relationship industry. 

And that's, if I was to go all the way down, it really goes down to the, I'm sorry, but the patriarchy and teaching women that their labor should be cheap and affordable, because they're providing care, and therefore, they should price themselves really low. And if they're charging what they're worth, they're actually evil, or anything like this. And I'm like, no, you need to charge money that allows you to live well, and to have the capacity to help more people. 

There are other ways to afford to, to give affordable care without just pricing yourself so low that you can't pay for anything. But again, these are mindsets that most professionals, unfortunately, do not address. Scarcity mindset, savior complex, all these things I've seen so much of. 

Guilty myself, you know, when I started, I was like, I want to, you know, provide affordable care and blah, blah, blah. And then you look at the numbers, and you're like, well, I can't, because in the past, an employer was paying for your insurance, for your health, for your holidays, for your sick pay, you, you could call in and be like, I can't come in today. And that was fine.

Now, if you're not working, you're not making any money. Nobody's paying for your holiday. And also, nobody's paying for your advertising. 

Nobody's bringing you clients to the door as before. So all of these kinds of things do not allow people to just charge basic rates, because basic rates don't allow you to go on holiday, have health care, and, and be sick even. So that's another issue that most people don't realize that what you make for your company as an employee is two or three times higher than what they pay you, just because they have to pay for everything else, your pension, health, everything. 

And a lot of people don't account for that when they start a business. Yes, the unexpected lack of, you know, workers comp insurance has been, it's interesting, the financial logistics of private practice are fascinating. And everything you're saying really lines up with what I hear from so many other providers. 

What then is the solution? How do we make something that is traditionally women's work? And I think that is so important that you speak to that because therapy is only recently psychotherapy is only recently considered a skilled profession. You know, if you go back to the 1970s, or even the early 80s, this was pink collar. This was where a woman went when she couldn't cut it anywhere else. 

It was social services. It was helping. And so there really is a lack of value placed on the role of therapy.

Well, first of all, people need to address their own internalized biases and misogyny and negative mindset about money. Not long ago, I was talking to someone from the sexuality and wellness field. And they were very much like anti-capitalist, etc. 

And I'm like, yeah, I get it. But it's not going away. So either you play the game or you get, you know, fucked. 

I'm sorry for the lingo. But that's the case. And I said, imagine that you could ethically earn a billion. 

And she was like, there's no way I can ethically earn a billion. And I'm like, well, let's put it that way. Let's create, let's think of it about creating value and helping people with the value. 

Maybe you publish books, maybe you made courses, maybe you became Esther Perel, 10 times bigger than her, you know. And everything that you created helps people. And you still charge for it. 

You're creating massively positive impact worldwide with your work. You can ethically create, educate, support the industry, support the world and make good money. And I said to her, what would you do with a billion dollars if you became a billionaire? She was like, I don't want a billion dollars. 

And I'm like, what do you mean you don't want a billion dollars? Like, there's so many things that when you have money, you can do, you can change, you can fight for. When you're broke, you can't. You're survival. 

And you do not have the capacity to fight for the things that you believe in. Like, I know that if I had a billion dollars, I will be funding research for, let's say, contraception for women that doesn't have shit side effects. For instance, I would be funding politicians that have their heart in their right place and want to fight for our human rights. 

I will be supporting fellow business entrepreneurs in the industry so that they can make it big and they can influence the world positively. I'll be throwing money in entrepreneurs who create ethical porn like Cindy Gallop, for instance, and so many others. Why wouldn't you want to have a billion dollars that you have created by creating value for the world? And that's the thing. 

A lot of professionals in the industry have such a negative mindset. And I'm like, all of it, money, business, it will be a tool in your hands. If you become a billionaire and you're spending on, I don't know, Porsches and buying yourself an island somewhere, like, okay, but can you do some good with it? And that's the problem. 

Most professionals, again, devalue themselves. They do not examine these money negative mindsets, have a massive, scarcity mindset about money. And that's why they don't really end up helping as many people, because they don't spend money on their businesses to actually get the right promotion, to reach the right people. 

They don't invest in having people that can help them build the best products, the best courses, the best books, whatever it is, that can actually change the world. And that's the saddest thing, because I see it all day long. When I talk to professionals, they're like, oh, yeah, I want to, I want to change the world. 

And I'm like, well, how are you doing it? And they simply aren't. The moment someone gives me a billion dollars, I am definitely sending money to Cindy Gallop. But until then, with folks who are throughout their career, especially early on, the toy makers, the entrepreneurs, folks who are like Stephanie, non-profits like the Bound Together Foundation, what is it that, well, two things, one, how do they engage with the communities you're building? And secondly, how are people in that community helping each other get a little closer to that $1 billion figure? Anyone wants to join the Shakespeare Business Community, it's really easy to just Google us. 

We're the first result that pops up on Google. And the best way is to engage with the meetings, because we run meetings, we run networking events. And these are the opportunities where people get together and can speak about the challenges that they face in the meetings. 

For instance, when we do meetings and networking, we basically invite people to fill out a form saying, I'm this and this person, here's my LinkedIn, here's my website, here's what I do. And here's how I want to collaborate with people, such as run events together, like workshops, webinars. I want to interview them for my podcast, or I want to be interviewed, etc. 

So we give that infrastructure to people to actually connect outside of meetings. And I always say, connect with people, work with people. We have articles on our website about how to collaborate ideas, endless ideas of how to collaborate with partners, and partner up with fellow colleagues.

And part of it is literally follow up, because I know I've had plenty of meetings with people about potential work together or partnerships, and excitement is high at first, and then people just drop off. And I'm like, well, you know, we spent like a couple of hours discussing this, and now what we just abandon it, you know, and people don't follow up with emails. So just this kind of business know how that it's okay to follow up that it's okay that you dropped off, and it's no shame, just get back to the person that you discussed a partnership with.

And in terms of the other work that we do to support professionals is a platform we're calling Life's Explicit, where it's everything that I wish I had when I was starting out. It's a blend between a directory where you can list yourself as a professional, but it's so much more because you can also list any kind of products, and services, merchandise, books that you have created, published, etc. And we will promote them. 

So that kind of work that you would usually expect to do yourself, the building social media, the newsletter, the advertising, etc. Life's Explicit does it for you, because it's more than a directory, you get to be promoted in multiple ways. For instance, we have quizzes. 

And if you have written an article that could easily be recommended to someone who has just filled out that that quiz and had had such an outcome from it, we'll be like, hey, read this article. And that article will promote the professional, will lead directly to their profile, and people can find them easily. So a lot of the challenges that sexuality professionals face can be helped if we worked in a community, if we work together. 

And the expenses for running a business can be massively reduced when we're doing it wholesale, so to speak, for like multiple people, rather than for like individual professionals. So there's so many things infrastructure-wise that the industry is missing. And these are the two that I have found to be really close to my heart, and to be keen on working on, to support professionals with. 

You know, I think that makes a perfect sense to me from a dollars and cents perspective, right? If you're thinking about a newsletter, if you're thinking about advertising on the socials, if you're thinking about advertising on the search engines, you're right away thinking about a couple thousand U.S. a month to run something like that. So right away, I think that makes a lot of sense. Can you give me an example of some of the ways people help each other from a community perspective? You were highlighting like, oh, we need to get people together to share ideas, share tips. 

What's a good story of how that comes together? If sexuality professionals have something to share with the industry that they want to teach, as for instance, we interviewed Danielle Kramer, as I mentioned earlier, about abortion care and how this is impacting sexuality professionals in terms of confidentiality, disclosure, courts, etc. That is a really good way that sexuality professionals can support the industry. So if you specialize in something, why not share that knowledge with your fellow colleagues and you can do this through the sexual business community? David Lee, he spoke about ethics in practice in an interview with us, and that's hugely important because a lot of professionals struggle with the ethics of supporting someone through specific issues or from a legal point of view, whatever it is. 

Another way is collaborations, as I mentioned earlier. I've had multiple webinars and workshops that I've done with colleagues that have led to both of us expanding our reach and getting clients from each other. Audiences and even just presenting on something that is interesting to your own audience, they are reminded of you and they're like, oh shit, I've been thinking about working with this professional, you know, and it can boost the trust for both of you as colleagues. 

Another one is referrals that professionals can do for each other. I keep saying I'm not an expert in everything. In my discovery calls with clients, I tell them, look, there are certain things I'm 100% sure I'm not the right professional to work with, so let's explore what you're coming with in terms of challenges and if I'm not the right professional, I'll refer you. 

And I will refer to people that I know though. I'm not likely to just say, oh, I've heard Jimmy does trans issues. Go to Jimmy. 

Like, if I don't know Jimmy, I'm not gonna recommend Jimmy, right? So that's the thing, that if you show up in those kind of meetings, build relationships, speak and present alongside your colleagues, they see that you know your shit, they learn from you, which enriches them. I can learn for days about trans issues, for instance. I'm still not going to work with it. 

I can learn for months about Tantra. Am I going to become a Tantra practitioner and teach that? Nope. You know, so you can enrich people without stressing that they're going to take your clients and I think that's one of the problems that we have in that scarcity mindset. 

People think the pie is too small and someone else would steal their clients and I'm no, they're not gonna. And the pie is massive. What we're doing to service for the industry is not working together and expanding our reach. 

And that's a massive problem. This is how we literally shoot ourselves in the foot continuously. Absolutely. 

Poor Jimmy, I'll give him a piece of pie. He deserves the pie. Speaking of community, David Ley, friend of the show, friend of ours. 

So I'm super excited to hear that he has been doing some ethics work with you. David, if you're listening, we love you. I'm thinking, I'm curious, what challenges or barriers have you run into in getting this community up and running? We've talked to people like Shakun Sethi about problems with collecting payments for memberships for sexual health platforms. 

We know that it can be difficult when you're advertising even professional organizations on LinkedIn that are sexual health related. Have you encountered any challenges or barriers as you've built this? Yes, of course. The censorship is one. 

I mean, I've been censored by Google by even posting that the sex-free business community is in a partnership with so-and-so just because they're six. And I'm like, we're B2B, what the f-. So we've still been censored for basic stuff.

So this is one, but that's everybody's plague. And when it comes to the building of the sexuality community is the resistance from a lot of professionals. They feel like they need community, but they're frightened from being in a community. 

Again, because of that, they'll steal my clients or impose the syndrome. Another thing that plagues a lot of professionals and they don't want to compare themselves in a context. And the other highlight is, yes, we might talk about practice, but we usually talk about business in those business meetings. 

So show up, you know, learn from others. We've had so many topics and things that we've exchanged as know-how that literally has helped people improve and scale their businesses. If it wasn't for my colleagues sharing what works for them, I wouldn't have been able to scale my business. 

I wouldn't be able to run my own private practice. And the other big issue is, as I mentioned, the business mindset that is very negative, the money mindset that is very negative, and the people are broke. You know, we want to do a lot more in the sex-free business community to support professionals, but all of that costs money. 

So that's why I keep saying, if you want something to thrive, you need to have the money to support it in order for it to grow and for it to continue supporting you in turn. But people would often see that, let's say we charge for the business meeting and it's like, do you know that from business meetings alone, I have probably saved thousands of dollars just because someone shared something about a software or an idea that I've implemented and made me money. One of my colleagues, because I have a podcast as well, I'm bilingual and it's in Bulgarian. 

So unless you speak Bulgarian, this is not going to be for you. But my colleague shared in a meeting that he regrets, in a business meeting, that he regrets not listening to business advice more often from me because one piece of business advice, and I'm not going to disclose what exactly it was, but for the past three years has made him nearly 40,000 euros. And that's literally been a five-minute conversation that has made him 40,000 euros.

And that's the thing. If you want to cram your river that we charge for the time that it takes to organize a meeting, then you're not going to value the business advice that you're going to get from a meeting. Oftentimes people feel overwhelmed after a meeting. 

They have had a lot of advice from it. That was the early days. And then because they didn't really invest in it, they didn't really pay for that advice. 

We know what happens with it. They do nothing with it. When people pay for things, they value them, implement them. 

And there's plenty of research that shows that it's not that the Porsche is a better car than the Volkswagen. It's that people take good care of it. That's why it lasts longer. 

That's why they love it more, et cetera. So if you love your business, if you want it to thrive, you need to invest in it. And that's a massive mindset that is very difficult to tackle when it comes to us building the business community.

That was a lot. Sorry. It was a great soapbox. 

It was a fabulous soapbox. And I think it really sums up everything that we were curious about, everything we wanted to know about you and your work. And I think it's a really great place to thank you for being here and to thank you for sharing your work and your ideas and your much needed entrepreneurial spirit in the world of mental health and sexual health. 

Because you're right. We are people that are uncomfortable with the idea of profit. I joke that my diploma came with fine print that said not valid for legal tender. 

And I kind of sort of stand by that. So you are a refreshing voice in the community. And I thank you so much for being here and for making time to join us, especially from all the way around the world. 

And I want to thank everybody else for tuning in to Securing Sexuality, your source for the information you need to protect yourself and your relationships. Yeah. Thank you so much, Leah, for the conversation. 

This podcast has been brought to you by the Bound Together Foundation, a 501c3 nonprofit and a bedroom to the cloud. We're here to help you navigate safe sex in a digital age. Be sure to check out our website, SecuringSexuality.com for more links to information about Leah, her work, and everything else that we've discussed here today, as well as our live events. 

And join us again here for more fascinating conversations about the intersection of sexuality and technology. Have a great week.

In the digital age, dating apps have become a primary tool for meeting new people, whether for casual hookups or serious relationships. However, the convenience of these apps comes with inherent risks, particularly concerning the privacy and safety of users. Recent research highlights a significant vulnerability in several popular dating apps, which could potentially expose users to stalking, intimate partner violence, or other malicious activities. Here we'll explore these risks, the concept of "oracle trilateration," and what both users and app developers can do to mitigate these dangers.

The Vulnerability: Oracle Trilateration
Researchers from a Belgian university recently uncovered a vulnerability in several popular dating apps, including Bumble, Badoo, Grindr, Happn, Hinge, and Hilly. The vulnerability, termed "oracle trilateration," involves a method where an attacker can determine a user's precise location by manipulating their GPS location and recording the distance reported by the app from multiple points. By repeating this process from three different locations, the attacker can accurately triangulate the user's position down to a few meters.

This method poses a severe risk, particularly for individuals who may be at risk of stalking, domestic violence, or other forms of harassment. While the concept of trilateration might seem like something out of a crime drama, its real-world implications are frighteningly tangible.

The Importance of Location Privacy
Location-based dating apps rely on geographical proximity to connect users. The closer someone is, the more likely you are to meet up quickly. While this feature is crucial for the app's functionality, it can also be exploited if proper safeguards are not in place. Knowing someone's exact location can be particularly dangerous in cases of domestic violence or stalking, where an abuser could use this information to find a victim.

In urban areas, the accuracy of this trilateration might be less precise due to the density of buildings and population. However, in suburban or rural areas, where there are fewer potential locations to narrow down, this method could easily pinpoint someone's home or workplace, putting them at significant risk.

How to Protect Yourself
For users concerned about their safety, there are several steps that can be taken to mitigate the risks posed by these vulnerabilities:

1. Use Public Spaces: Engage with dating apps from busy, public locations where your exact location is harder to pinpoint. This reduces the risk of someone accurately trilaterating your position.
2. Disable Location Sharing: Some apps allow you to disable precise location sharing until you're ready to meet someone. This can be a useful feature to protect your privacy.
3. Use GPS Spoofing: For more tech-savvy users, Android devices have a "select mock location" feature in developer mode that allows you to set a fake GPS location. There are also apps available that can change your GPS location without requiring any special permissions. iPhone users can use similar apps designed for games like Pokémon Go to achieve the same effect.
4. Be Mindful of Your Risk: Consider your personal risk framework when using dating apps. If you are in a situation where your location needs to be kept private, you might want to take extra precautions or use apps that are known to have better privacy protections.

What Should Companies Do?
Dating app developers also have a responsibility to protect their users. This involves incorporating threat modeling during the app development process, which includes considering potential risks like stalking or intimate partner violence. Here are some steps companies can take:

1. Reduce Location Precision: Instead of providing exact distances, apps could offer a range (e.g., "within 10 miles") or snap users to a grid that provides a rough location rather than an exact one.
2. Round Data Points: By rounding location data to a few decimal points, the precision of trilateration is reduced, making it harder to pinpoint someone's exact location.
3. Monitor Suspicious Behavior: App developers should flag unusual behavior, such as a user frequently changing their GPS location, as this could indicate someone attempting to trilaterate another user's position.

Balancing Usability and Security
While these measures are essential, there is a fine balance between usability and security. The very nature of hookup apps, for instance, relies on users being able to find each other quickly and easily. As such, users must be aware of the trade-offs they are making and take steps to protect their privacy where necessary.

While dating apps have revolutionized how we connect with others, they also introduce new risks that users and developers must be aware of. By understanding these risks and taking proactive steps, we can ensure that our digital interactions remain safe and secure.


Key Concepts:
​

• Oracle trilateration vulnerability
• Dating app security risks
• Location-based dating apps
• Protecting privacy on dating apps
• Stalking and geolocation threats
• Cybersecurity in dating apps
• Fake GPS location apps
• Threat modeling in app development
• Geographical profiling in dating apps
• Location privacy for online dating

​Hello and welcome to Securing Sexuality, the podcast where we discuss the intersection of intimacy and information security. I'm Wolf Goerlich. He's a hacker and I'm Stefani Goerlich.

She is a sex therapist and together we're going to discuss what safe sex looks like in a digital age. And I think today is the I Get to Scare Stefani episode. I mean most of our episodes are the You Get to Scare Stefani episodes. 

Sometimes you bring along a friend to help you do it. I'm looking at you, Josh Marpet. Ah, Josh, shout out to you.

So, you want to know what's new in the news? Um, besides, you know, like, impending global disasters, election shenanigans, um, polarization and climate change? Oh, and the Olympics. Oh yeah, and the Olympics. Shout out to Pommel Horse Guy.

Josh Marpet and Pommel Horse Guy. And the Turkish sharpshooter. He is, he is my new favorite person.

But, no, but what I want to actually talking about is something that hit the, the news cycle around our type of things, right? So there's some researchers in this Belgian university. K.U. Leuven, and I'm probably pronouncing it wrong. To our Belgian listeners, I apologize.

If it makes you feel any better, I pronounce my own name wrong. So these researchers in this Belgian university, they have analyzed 15 popular dating apps, and found a vulnerability, specifically in Bumble, and Badoo, and Grindr, and Happn, and Hinge, and Hilly. They, they have this scary vulnerability.

What is that vulnerability? Because I don't like it when I hear dating website vulnerabilities. That makes my clients less safe. I mean, not to just be super, like, obvious about it, but.

That sounds like a good idea. That makes my clients less safe. For the, for the listener.

I did not write that in the show notes. She is not reading that. All right.

So, it is my new favorite phrase, oracle trilateration. Okay, so this makes me think of two things. Either one, triangulation, which is a therapeutic term, or two, the trilateral commission, which is a conspiracy theorist term.

So which, which of these does oracle trilateralization fall into? I think it's, tell me more about triangulation. What does that mean? So, triangulation in therapy is when you're working with a couple, or with a family, and there's this perception of sort of, like, pitting one against the other, or where the therapist has formed an alliance with one, and they're teaming up on the other. No, no, that's nothing like it.

Although, it does take three points. So we are at the tri, meaning three, so I think we're on the same page there. Do you remember when we met, and you and I were on Tinder, it's how we met, we talked about this on the show many times, it used to be like, this person is nearby, they're so far away from you, right? It would give you, like, a distance.

Yeah, I mean, that was the original point of Tinder and Grindr, was to hook up, right? They weren't originally, I mean, Grindr is still hook up. Tinder has evolved, a lot of people use it more for, you know, meeting people they want to date. But originally, it was a DTF, within five minutes of me, sort of website.

So yeah, I remember that, because that was how you knew who was nearby, and DTF. So, I'm going to come back to that, because it's interesting. I want to ask you a question about hook up sites, but I'll get back to that.

What you do with Oracle Trilateration, is you set, let's say I'm trying to find you, and I'm a bad guy. And I know you're on the dating site, so I find you on the dating site. I set my GPS location to be in one point, and I see how far away you are. 

And then I set it in another point, and I see how far away you are. And then I set it in a third point, I'll bet you guessed that, Trilateration 3. And now I've got three different locations, right? I've got these three different positions, and each time I've done that, and looked at the app, or more realistically, queried the API, I'm going to get a specific number of the distance between you and me, and then we can do some fancy math, and I can figure out where you are down to a few meters. Okay.

Oracle Trilateration. Where does the Oracle part come into it, though? Because that's the, like, is it like Oracle the company? First of all, does Oracle the company still exist? Yeah, Oracle the company still, we have friends who work there. You know the folks who invite us over for cheese and wine parties every year? They're over, yeah, they're over at Oracle. 

Oh, well, I'll have to apologize for them, for questioning the existence of their employer. But does it have to do with that, or, like, where does, like, I get the triangulation, trilateralization, now I realize that we're not talking either therapy or conspiracy theories, we're talking criminal minds. Yes. 

Oh, yes. Criminal minds. There's always, there's always, you know, once or twice a season where they need to find the serial killer by mapping out all of their victims on a map and using that to triangulate their location.

Yes. Oh, that's so cool. Yeah.

Now criminal minds. This is a criminal minds attack, but in criminal minds, right, when they're asking this of some source, that source is providing an answer. And I think these researchers use the phrase Oracle to, you know, be like the mythical Oracle, right? I have asked and I've received an answer.

And so it's really more just like, you know, hackers like their cool terms. Oracle, seek the Oracle and ask the distance. She just sighed.

I just sighed. So tell me how this makes my clients less safe. Well, here's the thing.

For people who are on a dating site and looking for a partner, you might not necessarily care. Okay, the partner now knows where I am. Now, it is a little bit creepy because you may be having some messages with someone and now they know like really where you are down to a few meters. 

There is a certain creep factor to that. But it might not necessarily be a big deal. Like you say, if this person is DTF, which every time I say that I think of like phone tones.

But if it's this person is in that mindset, maybe knowing where you are to a couple meters doesn't necessarily make a big difference. But think about it in terms of partner violence. Think about in terms of domestic violence. 

Think about in terms of stalkers. If you have someone who you are no longer in a relationship with who is trying to find you and you're on one of these apps and they create a account on one of these apps and they use that account to triangulate your location, that could create risk for you as the potential victim here. So again, I'm stuck on serial killers. 

I mean, you've met me. Forensics, social work is my jam. In criminal minds, they would call this geographical profiling.

And I'm kind of picturing that, but like instead of the good guys, the behavioral analysis unit using geographic profiling to find the serial killer, it sounds like let's just go with the hyperbolic. The serial killer using the dating website could use geographic profiling to find potentially vulnerable people? Yes. Yeah. 

Within a couple of meters. Now, if the person is in a city, they may be you know, let's say they're in a skyscraper, right? That could be anywhere from floor 1 to 36 or however high the skyscraper is. So yeah, remember GPS is more or less flat.

So it's not going to tell you exact location up or down. But suppose you're in a more rural area or suburb, you could narrow it down to someone's house or someone's place of work. Well, that's terrifying.

Yeah. Geo-profiling of victims. I mean, on one hand, I guess we should tell people that, you know, just whenever you're going to be on any sort of dating website, be in a very public place when you do it.

But we used to, I remember last summer, 50 episodes ago, we were like, go to the mall, go somewhere public when you're going to be on these things. I don't think it was dating websites then, but we were talking about tracking and we talked about being in busy public places where lots of people would have lots of phones and devices. But the mall near us just closed.

So unless you have a friend that lives in like an apartment tower that you can be like, hey, can I come sit on your couch and swipe? What do people do about this? How can they mitigate their exposure here? Well, do we want to talk about what people can do or do we want to talk about what companies should do? You know what? I am interested in both. So I will let you, my cybersecurity consultant expert husband, board game compatriot, you decide the order you want to answer that in. I, as the therapist, am concerned about the people. 

You, as the cybersecurity expert, are concerned about the companies. So I will trust you to rank the importance of how we talk about this. Oh, see, that's mean because now I got to rank your preference over my preference.

Oh, this is a terrible choice. All right. I will answer your question first.

What can you do? There's a couple things you can do. One is, obviously, like you're saying, swipe or interact with these apps from a public place. Also, some of the apps have the ability to not share your location. 

So maybe that's an option until you're ready to meet up. And there is also, by the way, if you want to get into it, other data that these researchers surfaced that could be found. But I think the location was the one that was really interesting to me.

If you are on the more technical side, there are things you can do in the Android and iPhone. On the Android, you can go into developer mode, and there's a feature called select mock location. So you can use select mock location to actually set your location wherever you want.

You could just always be swiping from, I don't know, the closed mall. Why is this person always in the closed mall? Maybe they're a serial killer. So you could do that.

There's also Android apps like fake GPS and GPS emulator. On the iPhone, there isn't necessarily a developer mode, right? The way you do a developer mode is you jailbreak your iPhone. I am not recommending you jailbreak your iPhone, but if you did jailbreak your iPhone, which I'm not recommending, you could also tamper with the location similar to Android's select mock location in the developer mode. 

And of course, oh, this is kind of cool. You may like this one. This comes from the Pokemon Go community.

There actually are address or GPS changing apps that don't require jailbreaking. Like one of them is Tenorshare iAnyGo. And these apps are actually not made for privacy.

They're made so that Pokemon Go players could change their location and act with things without having to drive around. So again, security through the gaming community comes through. You could use one of these types of features to shift your location a little bit to the left, a little bit to the right when you're on these apps.

Important note, though, I'm not, obviously as we say on so many of these podcasts, I'm not endorsing any applications. I'm certainly not endorsing jailbreaking your phone, which I think I've said three times now. But there are ways that people can change the location on their devices, either by apps or getting closer into the hardware.

Wow. So I appreciate that. Also, it doesn't feel intuitive to me as somebody that's not super non-techie.

Wait, I said that wrong. As somebody that is super non-techie. I heard you say, I'm not encouraging you to jailbreak your phones, but I don't know that many of my people would know how to do that if they wanted to.

But they could. Someone could, if they so chose. Google, how do I change my location when playing Pokemon Go? And there's like a dozen pages and apps and suggestions how to do that. 

And that same thing should work once it's changed, should work for the dating app. You'd want to try it. Your mileage may vary. 

I've not tested all of these options. That makes sense. So what should companies be doing to protect us? This is where I get excited.

as you might imagine, one of the things that really irks me, we've talked about threat modeling before, right? We have, indeed. And so what's the definition of threat modeling again? Threat modeling is kind of like risk assessment in therapy. We are looking at all of the potential things that could go wrong, all of the potential trouble sources or danger points, and then we are conceptualizing how to protect ourselves from those or respond to them.

Absolutely. You nailed a gold star for my wife. I know how to define risk assessment.

Wait, no. Threat modeling. Sometimes my world does overlap a little bit.

Absolutely it does. And that's what makes this podcast fun. So with that in mind, if you're building dating sites, for goodness sake, threat model stalkers, domestic violence, intimate partner violence in your apps, this should have been, I would argue, this type of attack should have been caught in the threat model.

Okay. Now, historically, location-based dating apps have been vulnerable to this, but some of them have put in measures to protect against, I could say again, Oracle trilateration. And there's a couple different ways to do this. 

One is you could say, this person is close or not close. And instead of giving a distance between you and the other person, you could just give a binary. Yeah, if you set it within 10 miles, yeah, they're within your 10 miles.

And so that would address it. You could snap people to grids. You could do grid snapping. 

Maybe imagine a grid across the city that was a city block, and everyone was snapped to the center of that block, and the dating app site would tell you roughly what block they're in. Now, you could still argue, well, they could still maybe find my place at work or whatever, but in that case, you're not getting down to a couple square meters. You're getting into a much more granular area. 

Interestingly enough, Tinder now uses grid snapping. So Tinder is the one of the apps that I did not mention that was susceptible. They used to be. 

They fixed this a long time ago. They used grid snapping. That's how they solved it.

You can also do, and this is what I like. The more decimal points that you give in terms of distance, the more accurate the trilateration is. Okay? More decimal points marker. 

Do you remember when we were talking to RenderMan and Nicole, and they're like, yeah, well, you should just, like, instead of returning exact geolocations, return an aggregate or return a shortened form of that, right? Don't return all the data. This other way of doing it is very similar to that. Round the coordinates up by a couple decimal points, which makes it less precise, makes it less accurate. 

Now you can't identify within someone within a couple meters. You're identifying someone within a hundred square meters. So it's all about how you return that data. 

I would also say, back to threat modeling, maybe if someone is jumping locations every couple minutes, that might be a problem, right? If you think about the path a adversary takes, and you look for weird things they're doing, I would encourage anyone who's doing geolocation apps to look for someone who keeps changing the location. That should be an obviously fraud, right? Like, if my GPS is changing on you every time I talk to you, probably I'm not a valid user behaving in good faith. That reminds me of the section of our book that I was just working on, where I was learning about Tor, the Tor browser, and how it works.

And I was so excited to tell you that I had learned that one of the things that it does is that it makes it look like you're doing something else. If you are a North Korean dissident, and you're on the Freedom House website, but you're using Tor, Tor will make it look like you're working on a spreadsheet, or you're sending email. It disguises what you're doing as you're doing it. 

And that I thought was fascinating. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely it is.

And I think there's a lot of technical nuance in that, that I won't get caught up on, that I'm fighting not to get caught up on. But yes, this idea that you're cloaking some of the things. And some of the apps do have this idea of spatial cloaking.

Where you can distract where you're at, or you can hide where you're at, or you can snap it to another city or another location, you can pin it. So there's certainly this idea of spatial cloaking that is acceptable to that. Also, from an app perspective, I wonder why all the dating apps look like dating apps. 

Wasn't there like, there were sexting apps that could store photos that would look like a calendar, look like something innocuous. Wasn't there? Yeah, there are several. And honestly where we see those disguised ones, they usually look like a calculator.

And there's something that sex educators will warn parents about, because the kids will use them to sext with each other, or to hide problematic images that they've saved, and from, you know, when the parent looks at the phone, it just looks like a calculator app. There are some others that aren't quite as hidden. One that I've recommended to my clients a lot over the years is KeepSafe.

And KeepSafe, you know, their icon for the app says KeepSafe, but it doesn't really explain what that is. And one of the things that I've always liked about it is that if you have it open and your boss walks into the room, if you put your phone face down, KeepSafe changes to your browser. So, you know, there's a quick way to disguise what you're doing in the moment, but the app itself is not necessarily disguised in your phone. 

Yeah, yeah. I wonder why these dating sites, or dating apps, don't have something like that. I mean, they probably don't want to give off Ashley Madison vibes, right? Where the idea would be, oh, if you have to hide the fact that you're on, I don't know, Bumble, should you even be on Bumble at all? Oh, that's a good point.

That's a good point. Which gets me back to the question I wanted to ask you earlier. What is the difference between dating apps and hookup apps? So, a hookup app is specifically to meet for casual sex.

The people on a hookup app might chat a little bit, but they're not interested in meeting your parents or learning your favorite color. They are interested in your favorite position, and how quickly you are interested in connecting for casual sex. How quickly you're interested in getting into your favorite position? Yeah, that too.

Dating apps, on the other hand, are focused more broadly. I mean, people still will use them to find friends with benefits or casual partners, but that's not the goal. The goal is to meet people that you might actually form a longer-term relationship with. 

Let's play dating app or hookup app. Can we do that? Sure. Alright, you ready? You excited? I'm here for it.

Let's play the game. Alright, Hilly. Never heard of it.

Hinge. Can I say hybrid? Is hybrid a pick? I mean, sure. Hinge is a hybrid.

Grindr. Oh, hookup. Bumble.

Dating. Badoo. Never heard of it.

So, Grindr is definitely a hookup website. Hinge could go either way because hinge is used a lot for people who are poly or ethically non-monogamous. So, you'll get a kind of a mix of threesome or group sex hookups combined with people that are in open relationship dynamics, might have other partners, but are looking for relationships. 

So, Hinge kind of can go either way depending on the user goal. So, here is something that we always argue about in security, and I hate the, I feel it's a false dichotomy, but I think it is warranted in this conversation. Oftentimes we'll say there's a conflict between usability and security, and again, I think that's a false dichotomy, but in this situation, isn't the entire point of a hookup app to find the people to hookup with? Yes.

So, whereas this is a vulnerability, and this is something that I do think people should be aware of, and I do think companies should take some time to improve, one of the things I was thinking about when I was reading this was like, if I was using this to meet people for whatever reason, I might want them to know where I am. I mean, yes. It certainly is easier to meet somebody for casual sex if you know that you're in the same general proximity to one another.

There's nothing worse than spending a half hour flirting, sharing dick pics, and discussing favorite positions, only to find out that the app might say you're based in Metro Detroit, but you're currently on a business trip to, I don't know, Idaho at the moment. The geolocation can be important at times. That is such a specific example. 

Shout out to our people who are flirting and sharing images on their business trips to Idaho. Hooking up is a time-sensitive endeavor. It is one of the few times when I would argue that geographical information is crucial to the decision-making process.

Ooh! Have you ever hooked up? Have I ever hooked up on a dating app? No. Or anything. I mean, I'm going to go with the dating app, because if you're in person, then the geography problem's already solved.

Keep in mind, when I was doing these sort of things, you were just like, oh, I'm at the club? You're at the club. Let's be at the club together. Or let's exit the club together. 

Even better. I know where to go. No, I've never used any of these apps, which is why I'm always asking you these questions. 

I always feel very much a babe in the woods when you're telling me about how people do these things. But it is interesting, right? I do think we want to give people protection and agency and control, and I do think that people deserve to know what these apps may be opening them up to. And again, there's other information, by the way, in this research paper. 

For anyone who's interested, see the show notes. This is not just the locations. This is just my favorite part of the paper.

However, I also think if the idea is to be like, hey, who's within 20 meters of me? You probably want to be able to figure out if someone's within 20 meters of you. There seems to need to be a balance here between this is what I'm trying to do, and this is what I need to protect myself from. Yeah. 

That's one of the things, you know, I was talking to a friend of ours who does threat intelligence in your world, but not like targets data on customers getting breached. She does like, are terrorists going to bomb New York kind of threat intelligence? And she was talking about how fascinating it is for her to talk to her friends who use hookup apps versus dating apps and how their sort of personal risk framework varies and how it varies from app to app where, you know, people that are on Grindr might be a little bit more open to less information and faster connection versus somebody on Hinge, for example. And I thought that was so interesting because I don't know how often we consciously think about what is my personal risk framework for dating and hooking up, and how is that reflected in the apps that I use. 

I think so often people assume that their risk choices happen after they've connected with somebody. And really what I'm hearing you say is that these sort of internal decisions need to start happening when you're deciding which apps to download. Like, well before you've met a person and are deciding whether or not they're safe, we need to actually be thinking about which apps we want to use and what does that mean for our safety.

Yeah, I like that framing, right? As we think about our personal risk framework, we do need to think about what information we're putting out there, how that can be tracked, how that can be used, do we want to mask it until we're ready to meet the person? And it also gets to one of the things that's so incredibly tricky, which is this idea of privacy. How do I make sure that I'm enforcing privacy? Because in some cases, in some scenarios, I may want to be public, right? I may want my location public so I can hook up with people, or at the same time, while I'm making that public, I definitely don't want it public to my ex, or I definitely don't want it public to a stalker, or I definitely don't want it public to someone who may have criminal intent against people like me. And that is really difficult for cybersecurity people and privacy people to encode in the system, because we don't know who is doing what, and we don't know who wants what. 

So really, it gets back to personal agency. I do think app owners obviously should do a better job and correct these things. I do think we need to do threat modeling. 

We're building apps, but I do think one of the ongoing themes of our conversations is personal agency and personal awareness, so you can make those risk-informed decisions. Or, you know, just meet people in real life, like I keep telling everyone to do. But then what will we talk about on podcasts? This is a podcast about technology and sexology.

Come on now, we have nothing to talk about. Anyways, thank you so much for tuning in to Securing Sexuality, your source of information you need to protect yourself and your relationships, and all the technology and apps you download. Securing Sexuality is brought to you by the Bound Together Foundation, a 501c3 nonprofit.

From the bedroom to the cloud, we're here to help you navigate safe sex in a digital age. Be sure to check out our website, securingsexuality.com, for links to that research paper and some popular press coverage on it, as well as information on our live events. And join us again here for more fascinating conversations about the intersection of sexuality and technology.

Have a great week!

In today's digital landscape, where intimacy and information security intersect, understanding the phenomenon of ghosting and its underlying psychological factors has become increasingly crucial. Welcome to an exploration of ghosting, psychopathy, and how to navigate safe dating practices in the digital age.

The Mystery of Ghosting
Ghosting, the act of suddenly cutting off all communication without explanation, has puzzled many. Wolf Goerlich, a hacker, and Stefani Goerlich, a sex therapist, delve into this topic in their podcast "Securing Sexuality." They reveal that ghosting can be both an unintentional oversight and a deliberate avoidance strategy. While everyone might have ghosted someone unintentionally, the serial ghosters present a more complex issue.

Understanding the Dark Triad
Peter Jonason, an expert in dark triad traits, explains that individuals high in psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism are more prone to ghosting. This behavior is often linked to a low-risk method of mate switching, driven by the illusion of unlimited options provided by dating apps like Tinder and social media platforms like Instagram. Jonason highlights that dating apps create a superstimuli environment, leading to unrealistic expectations and addictive behaviors. This digital abundance of potential partners diminishes investment in any single relationship, making ghosting an easy, conflict-avoidant exit strategy.

The Role of Evolutionary Psychology
The conversation extends to evolutionary psychology, where the digital age's impact on dating and relationships is examined. The internet, akin to a global city, inflates the perceived value of individuals in the dating market, often leading to psychopathy and other dark triad traits.

Gender Differences and Safety
​Stefani Goerlich points out that women often ghost for safety reasons, such as avoiding overtly sexual or threatening interactions. Jonason concurs, noting that while ghosting is a modern term, the behavior of ending relationships abruptly has always existed, now just manifesting through text rather than phone calls or in-person interactions.

The Impact on Relationship Commitment
Dating apps have revolutionized how people meet but at the cost of relationship commitment. Jonason discusses how these platforms undermine monogamy, delay reproduction, and increase the age at which people get married. The ease of accessing multiple partners with minimal effort leads to a culture of fast relationships, much like the concept of fast fashion.

Tips for Navigating Online Dating

1. Accurate Self-Assessment: Understand your value to treat others better and avoid viewing potential partners as disposable.
2. Slow Down: Avoid rushing into intimacy. Take time to gather information about potential partners to ensure compatibility beyond the initial online interaction.
3. Beware of Functional Projection: Recognize that you may project your qualities onto others, creating a false sense of similarity.

In conclusion, the digital age has transformed dating, bringing both opportunities and challenges. By understanding the psychological factors behind ghosting and adopting mindful dating practices, individuals can navigate the digital dating landscape more safely and authentically. Stay tuned to "Securing Sexuality" for more insights into the intersection of intimacy and information security.


Key Concepts:

• Ghosting
• Dark Triad
• Psychopathy
• Narcissism
• Machiavellianism
• Mate Switching
• Superstimuli
• Functional Projection
• Online Dating
• Relationship Commitment

​Hello, and welcome to Securing Sexuality, the podcast where we discuss the intersection of intimacy-
 
-and information security. I'm Wolf Goerlich.
 
He's a hacker. And I'm Stefani Goerlich.
 
She's a sex therapist. And together, we're going to discuss what safe sex looks like in a digital age.
 
And as so often happens, we've had so many questions on this show. And one question I've had for you, Stephanie, again and again and again, and you've given me different answers, but I've never really been satisfied with the answer. That's not on you.
 
But I've always, like, why do people ghost? I never understood ghosting. It makes no sense to me. And you've tried to get this into my head, but this has always been something I struggle with.
 
Well, I think the why, there are different reasons, right? Different people do it for different reasons. There is no one unified why. Although, you know, I'm working with you on the Securing Sexuality book, and I was talking to one of our interview subjects the other day, and she pointed out something I'd never really thought of before, which is probably anybody who's ever dated has ghosted someone.
 
No way. Probably not intentionally in the most part, but there's always going to be that one conversation that just kind of like drops off your radar and you don't realize. And so the other person is left feeling hurt and abandoned and confused, and they don't even exist in your brain anymore.
 
So that's an answer I don't think I've ever given you before. The idea that we all have, we just don't know that we have. But I think what you're really talking about is why do people do it on purpose? Why does this become a pattern in somebody's sort of courtship profile, right? The serial ghosters.
 
Serial ghosters. And honestly, I don't know. But we have somebody who does, so I'm excited to have somebody not me give you an answer to this question.
 
Peter Jonason, thank you for joining us. Now, Peter, you are an expert in the dark triad traits, mate choice, psychometrics, sex differences. I see here you won the Ignoble Award in psychology in 2014, and you run a virtual lab called Personality Relationships and Evolutionary Psychology with members like all over the world who are contributing to this research.
 
So thank you so much for joining us today. Thanks for having me. So why do people ghost? No, I know it's a much bigger question, but... When I was listening to you, to be honest, the word why is a tricky word because the word why can be about for what reason, but it can also be what is the function in a deeper level, right? So you might ask simply kind of surface level questions about why people ghost, right? They give the reasons like, I didn't really like this person too much, or they were, you know, they were over the top, and I just wanted to get out quickly.
 
And you could ask it other ways and say, what are the kinds of people who are likely to do it? So we know from, for example, my research, I mean, I think this paper is horrible, but people seem to like it for some reason. And that people high in the dark triad are more likely to ghost and of course, more likely to ghost casual sex partners than long term partners. You might think about a deeper function of ghosting is that it's a low risk way of mate switching.
 
So mate switching is a common behavior that people do. It's more common probably now than ever because of the apparent availability of options, right? So things like Tinder, and Instagram, I mean, Instagram is really the largest dating app that exists. And it gives the illusion of an unlimited supply of partners.
 
And so our relative investment in any one partner is diminished by the presence, or at least the appearance of alternatives. And so it's just, it's an easy, passive aggressive, avoiding conflict kind of way out. And the reason why it might happen in the manner that it does may also tie back to hormones, in the sense that we are kind of addicted to our phones.
 
And so the people are damaged by it, because they're, they're addicted to this conversation. It's not like an in person interaction, there's a cell phones have a, they create this, what is this called? Over super, super stimuli, right? It's a super stimuli. So it gives you the level of feedback, this level of dopamine, if you will, as well, that you just don't get in real life.
 
And so it's an addiction, like everything else, you get hooked on it, because it's, it's like McDonald's, right? It's a really cheap way of getting the thing that you want. And so attention, for example, is one of the things that people want. And so in particular, women tend to feed more on attention than men do.
 
So Instagram, for example, just gives attention, attention, attention, attention. So it gives the appearance that I can have anyone in the world, men from Dubai are hitting me up, Habibi, come to Dubai, these kinds of things. So it's, it's just like, why invest? Why even care at all to this virtual person? No, I'm out.
 
You pull the ripcord, move on to the next person. So this global community that's created gives the appearance of more options. And with more options, I think probably increases psychopathy.
 
And so there's some mixed review on this. But people behind the dark triad tend to prefer to live in cities, live in places that have more people, like demographically, in terms of zip code, they would, if you ask them, where would they like to live, they say cities, where do they live cities, and this is compared to say, rural areas. And so basically, the internet creates a city for all of us, even if you're living in a little tiny town in Kentucky, you're you're you have access to the world.
 
And that information sets your barometer, it sets how the kinds of partners or how many partners or what your what you think your value is in the market. And sometimes that can be inflated. And so you may ghost is another reason you because you might think you're better than this person, that they don't deserve your nice treatment.
 
Because you if you get your ego stroked, you know, if you you know, like, I know girlfriends of mine, for example, who will you get on Tinder, and within a day, they have 100 matches, right? Because it's just like, it's this ego fest. It's like, I'm amazing. I have 100 matches, all these men, you know, offering to this and that.
 
And men don't really experience this, except for like the super attractive men, of course. So I'm not one of those men. So I don't experience this.
 
And but we know this to be the case. And so this information, while it's untrustworthy, it miscalibrates people towards psychopathy. Because it's people's are seen as kind of disposable, I have 100 options.
 
As we say, as they say, in Italy, but then it So, first of all, as the sex therapist and social worker, I do need to go on record and officially say please, listeners, if somebody on a dating app invites you to Dubai, don't go. That's how you end up with a Liam Neeson coming to get you back. Nothing good comes of somebody inviting you overseas on Tinder.
 
Don't do it bad. Now that I've made our safety disclaimer, you know, Peter, one of the things that I find fascinating as a clinician, is the way that people use the internet as like a self diagnostic tool. And one of the most popular things that people like to call themselves now is a psychopath.
 
Like they did an online checklist, they found some website somewhere, they have the dark triad qualities, and they're a psychopath. And it's turning into almost like this edgy statement of I'm so cool, I'm so different from everybody. And I'm curious if you can kind of give us an overview for the folks that aren't as like, forensic site nerdy as I am.
 
What do you mean when you talk about the dark triad? And how prevalent are these personality types of these traits, actually? Well, let's let's start, let's go backwards. The first problem is, is that everybody is obsessed with prevalence, because they're obsessed with what I call the three D's, which is deterring, detecting and destroying people who they perceive as cheaters in I don't mean romantic cheaters, I mean, cheaters in the social system. And so people are more agentic people who are selfish people who are self interested, aggressive, antagonistic, all these kinds of things.
 
So the issue of, of, of prevalence is a tricky one, because genuine criminal, like super, super problematic, let's say narcissism is extremely rare, extremely rare, like, you'd be you'd be lucky to meet one, so to speak. But there's lots of corporate psychopaths, and professor psychopaths, and girlfriend psychopaths that are, you know, they score relatively high on some measure that calculates the continuous distribution of people's scores. So most research nowadays on what's called the dark triad, and it's for the for the not the up the readers who don't know it listeners who don't know what it is, it's the confluence of studying the psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism altogether, you might add sadism as well, for example, but people score below the midpoint on a kind of Likert scale, like a, you know, one to five, you know, disagree to strongly disagree, most people aren't high on these traits, the average person is rather low in sadism, we're rarely going to find them.
 
And so to call your boyfriend, a psychopath, or to call yourself a psychopath, is a little bit of a stretch. And it's a little bit being, I think, intentionally provocative. I'm a psychopath, I'm proud of it.
 
And it's true that these traits are egocentric. But there's this coolness that has come with the dark triad a little bit where it's like, it's cool to say you're a narcissist. I mean, we have people who are rampant narcissists, like say, like Kanye West.
 
And we might say, Oh, yeah, see, look, it's, it's great to be a narcissist. Well, I don't know about that. Like, I'm not really sure.
 
Like he was in such debt when he married Kim Kardashian. Right? We just didn't know this. But she paid off his debt.
 
Why? Because she was in love. And so that's what you do when you're in love. And so no, I think if we're talking about the psychopath that people think of from from all the podcasts, and the true crime, and all this kind of stuff, this is incredibly rare.
 
Now, unfortunately, shows like true crime shows, and, and movies, and all these things, they, they give you a false impression that these things are common, because you could just watch 50 movies on your on your Netflix, right? You could just stream episode after episode after episode about a psychopath. But these kinds of levels of psychopathy are incredibly rare in the actual population. What's more accurate is that we all the two of you, me, probably my dog who's over here behind the screen, chewing on a bone, has some degree of narcissism, some degree of Machiavellianism, some degree of psychopathy.
 
And more importantly, that these things can be activated in predict because of predictable stimuli in the world. And so whether that stimuli is from childhood, whether it's stimuli is from adult circumstances, there might be good cause to score higher in a particular context. So my favorite example is a mother whose baby gets kidnapped.
 
Right? Well, part of being not psychopathic and being a mom is being highly empathetic, which means that caring about hurting other people, for example, but a mother who can't D downregulate her empathy, to go and punch the crap out of that person loses her baby. So in that sense, psychopathy, right, not clinical psychopathy, but psychopathy scores in this particular context, will be downregulated potentially in this person, because they have to they have to prioritize their, their baby, and maybe themselves, right, as well. And so to act like these traits are all bad is this baby in the bathwater problem.
 
And so the traditional approach from psychology, psychiatry, is that traits that are bad for the group are therefore inherently bad, period, no question, we can't have any more conversation about it. And the evolution of psychologists, among us, me included, say, wait, right, being bad is not necessarily bad for the individual. It could be good to be selfish, especially if it's context dependent.
 
Right. So one of the reasons that men make more money than women do, and it's not a lot of a lot more money. But one of the reasons is, men are more likely to ask for promotions.
 
Well, what is enabled, what enables that narcissism, right, the sense of I am worth something and the boldness to say, hey, boss, give me some more money. Maybe the boss says no. But you have the ability to say to stand up and say, be brave, or maybe delusional, either one is fine.
 
And say, hey, give me some more money. And you see what happens, right. And so this is one of the personality predictors, for example, of that accounts for the, you know, the, the, the, the, the so called gender pay gap, right? It's narcissism, in particular in men, seems to enable them to make more money.
 
So jumping back just a little bit this, this weekend, I was digging into evolutionary mismatches, because the weekend is always a very fun time in the Goerlich household. And I was looking at from a cybersecurity lens, but I have a question for you, which is, you know, the idea here is, is, of course, that there is something that made a lot of sense while we are developing as a species, going after something that's sweet, go, you know, maximizing the use of a resource, whatever it may be, that in the modern times, is, is creating maladaptive behaviors. So my, my question to you is, in a way, is that what we're talking about when we think about dating apps and dating platforms? And perhaps by extension, does that mean that these platforms or the internet is, is leading us towards, when we think about maladaptive behaviors, leading us towards a higher prevalence of psychopathy? Okay, so many things.
 
Okay, so the the mismatch is quite compelling, because the, the context of the environments under which, quote, unquote, adaptations will have evolved, don't have to exist anymore. But it doesn't mean the mechanisms that have evolved go away. Right.
 
And so this is a good example. The best example is the fat sugar salt problem, right? So these are things that were extremely rare. Now, they're rampant.
 
And so now the obesity epidemic is an is in part a function of an evolutionary mismatch that our adaptations for food seeking behaviors evolved in a time of scarcity. This is similar with mating. I'm not sure if dating apps are going to make us more psychopathic, they might instead diminish, which I think they probably already doing relationship commitment, they're probably undermining the probability of monogamy, they're probably, you know, decreasing the, or increasing the age at which people get married, decreasing the amount of children.
 
So we know in more, let's call them gender egalitarian, more competitive economic markets, more modern places like Singapore, Japan, the birth rate is going down in America as well, in Canada as well. And part of this is that the the the delay in reproduction is enabled, in part by the appearance of a billion options. And there's this weird, morbid fascination with the internet.
 
It's always like, oh, it's on the internet, people are people everywhere, to go back to the mismatch that, right. So people's evolutionary adaptations are behaving on the on social media, whether it's Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, grinder, whatever it is, and they're playing out to their hyper extreme, because there's no, there's no guardrails anymore, right? So people can be extra jerky, because there's no one going to punch them in the face. But when we were when when us, I suspect you're similar, we are similar in age, but when we were in high school, and we said something jerky, right, there was someone there to stop us.
 
Not just and maybe not just our father as well. I'm thinking of boys here in this case, but you know, older, older boys, right. So if I'm a freshman, and I'm being obnoxious, well, the seniors are there to, you know, take me down a couple pegs.
 
But with the internet, there's no guardrails. So whether it's aggression, whether it's sex, and so it's like these basic instincts to use the you know, Sharon Stone and slash Freudian kind of thing, sex and aggression, just get ratcheted up and ratcheted up and ratchet it up. And so it's online porn, right, whatever your kink is, it exacerbates that.
 
And then that plays out in real life, because now this is all I this is, this is all I want. Right? So before this, the sexual script was a little more flexible, a little, maybe a little less porn inspired. But now it's like, Nope, this is what I need.
 
You need to say these things, you need to do these things, you need to wear this thing, because you've been hyper specified. And so in this way, this isn't creating psychopathy. But the internet can create unrealistic expectations of everything.
 
Your point there about, it's just people being people also reminds me, it's not only just people being people, it's mammals being mammals. We were with a zoological society, we're touring this, this, it's not called a tribe of elephants, but whatever it may be, we're doing this tribe of elephants. And Stephanie will add in the right word, because she always knows the right word.
 
But what was fascinating was they're talking about herds of elephants, we'll go with herds. What they're talking about if the male young male elephants don't have mentors, like there isn't a senior male elephant to keep them in line. And if they don't have mates, they they were running roughshod, like they're terrorizing local villages, they're getting in sort of trouble.
 
And so the the way that they had to do conservation had to shift to make sure they had an older male that could like whip them into shape. It really is something very intrinsic with being on this planet in the way we've we've evolved as a species, which I don't know, maybe elephants never goes because they never forget. Well, I don't know about elephant ghosting, there's not enough of them to ghost and their hoops probably don't work well with phones.
 
But the elephant bit I love this finding, I use it in my talks is tremendous, because it really has two implications. One, it has an implication of, we need dads, we need dad, like we don't need we don't need jerk dads, right? But we need dads, because dads orient differently to their children, right? Dads stand as a kind of quasi threat to their sons to act right. Like, but if there's no bigger dominant males around, then as you said, the young males just go crazy.
 
Females of most species prefer older males, because older males have proven themselves, for example, they're bigger, they have they have gray hair, like silverback gorillas, for example, as I said, you know, and so the younger, younger males are always frustrated. And that frustration needs to be, like constrained by older males. So it's interesting to me that you bring up gender differences.
 
Because one of the conversations that Wolf and I have had a lot over the years is the what can be perceived as the prevalence of female ghosting of women, just dropping communication. And often, in my experience, that has been a safety response. It's been the person I was talking to said something overtly sexual that made me uncomfortable, or they said something threatening, or I didn't even want to give him my number at all.
 
But I didn't have a polite way of extricating myself. So now I'm not going to respond. And I'm curious where those sort of ghosting as safety action plays into this research.
 
So I'm of the mind that there really are only two basic evolutionary forces. And one is the seeking of safety, stability, security, that's like one thing. And then there's the sexy one, right, the status and mating and all of that.
 
And they're, they're often at odds. And but certainly, ghosting can be motivated by mating oriented approaches, like I'm just going to trade transition to someone else, or I'm going to put you on the back burner. Right? And both sexes can, of course do that.
 
But there is a safety element to Yeah, sure, why not. But the ghosting, the problem with the word ghosting is, is it gives the sense that this is a new phenomenon. But we have to put ghosting in context.
 
ghosting is just one method of ending a relationship. And we just call this ghosting. When we were young, we used to talk on the phone for hours, we just stopped calling the person back.
 
For example, it was ghosting, we just didn't call it ghosting, you want this relationship to be over? Okay, I don't want to talk anymore. Right? I'm not sure if ghosting is new, other than the fact that it tends to occur over text, because most of our relationships now are via text. And so one of the things that we tried to highlight in our study is, because on its surface, just studying ghosting is trivial.
 
We tried to say that ghosting is one of the things that people haven't studied in relation to the dark triad, because most research, admittedly, inspired by me, and often by me, is about the mate selection element, it's the beginning of the relationship, but the how relationships end, there's all communication researchers that have a list of ways in which relationships end relationship disillusion. People aren't really studying this, they haven't studied it. Another reason is from our work on Tinder, is that people on Tinder tend to be higher on psychopathy and narcissism than people who aren't on Tinder.
 
And this is particularly men. But in women, it's the opposite. The women who are most likely to be on Tinder seem to be women who are vulnerable in terms of attachment.
 
And even though the most common way that people are meeting people overwhelmingly is apps. But what apps do, I don't, I can talk to many people at a time, I can sit on my couch and swipe endlessly, I don't have to deal with that physical scariness of having to walk up to a woman, for example, like what Tinder does is it gives you really low investment. It's like, I don't have to try very hard.
 
And if you start not having to try very hard, it sets the tone badly in relationships, right? So our grandparents, the courtship of our grandparents was another world compared to our courtship. We've talked about this before on the show that Stephanie and I met on Tinder. And one of the things that we're preparing for this episode, so maybe that makes it sound like I'm higher in the dark triad.
 
But one of the things I was mentioning to her, I was probably talking to, I don't know, maybe five people at the time when we started dating. And after our first couple dates, I circled back to those people and said, Hey, lovely chatting with you. And one person, I actually had a date that I canceled on a lovely chatting with you, but found someone having a good time.
 
Best of luck in your search. And I think perhaps that's maybe because I was raised by my grandmother in part, maybe that's because I've got sort of that Gen X mentality. It never occurred to me just to like, delete them.
 
Yeah, yeah, well, it sounds like you have what they would call relationship authenticity. And I think older people like us, let's say approach these apps a little bit differently. And younger people have the illusion of time.
 
And so to them, it's just like, yep, whatever. Right? I don't really know what I want. I'm still finding myself I'm going to go do a yoga retreat for a year, you know, whatever.
 
But purposeful dating is what is what you're referring to. But most people don't purposeful date because purposeful dating is is is not dating for fun. Right? It's dating to find someone.
 
And it's dating with authenticity in that, like, respect, right? So we say, Look, I've enjoyed our time together, but it's not working out. Or I've enjoyed our time together, but I found somebody else. That's a different kind of dating than what is met being manifest in people say under 35.
 
Yeah, everyone is disposable. I mean, I'm very much into fashion. So what am I have very few hobbies left in my life and fashion is one of them.
 
And one of fashion's pet peeves is fast fashion. And like Zara and places like that, yeah, H&M. And that's how people's attitude towards mating and dating also is it's, it's fast, right? And so we we see this person for a little bit, then we move on to the next person, we move on to the next person.
 
And then we do it's called the the monkey theory, right? You you're grabbing on to the next branch before you've let go of the next one, right? And you're just transitioning from partner to partner and partner. Like comedian Aziz Ansari has a book about this called Modern Romance. And he says, or one of the things he says, is that our grandparents and probably us as well, we were we were satisficers, right? We found someone who was good enough, right? They weren't no one was perfect.
 
No one is perfect, right? But someone I could work with someone who was sufficiently attractive, someone who was sufficiently smart, someone who was sufficiently whatever, right? And now it's like, it's never enough. People are not they're, they're relatively neutral to long term relationships. But they are very positive on short term one.
 
It's funny that you talked about both elephants and monkeys, because in my world, what what you're describing, we would call monkey bar monogamy, where you're in a committed relationship for the one until you find the next and then you grab on to the next partner, and you're committed until you find the next and you grab on to the next partner. And there does seem to be a certain, you know, evolutionary humor in that. Yeah, evolutionary biologists call it hypergamy, right? So it's this, the effort to wrap to make up.
 
So thinking about bad investments, and elephants and monkeys and everything else that we've drawn in for inspiration from today. What would your what would your evolutionary dating tips be as a psychologist? How like, should people even be online if there were two or three things that people could use to channel science and human nature for their own partnership success? What would you tell them to do? Having a good sense of your value, not only will enable your mating success, but it will actually make other people's mating success and their lives better. Because we will if we if we have an accurate sense of our value, then we will treat other people better.
 
Right? We won't look down on them, we won't ghost them, we won't, we won't treat them as disposable, because it'd be like, no other people have value in the world. The speed to which people go to sex, after meeting off of an app, is actually statistically faster than they go to sex if they meet in person, right? I mean, there's exceptions, of course. I mean, you know, there's there's many a man who is a woman who have met me, you know, now, and be having sex in the next, you know, five hours or something.
 
But as a population, as a statistically, people go to bed faster. And why is that? It's because there's a false sense of intimacy that's created with these apps. And so you have to be pump the brakes, right? Be slow, right? Take in information, right? Some colleagues of mine, they coined this term called functional projection.
 
And functional projection is when you don't know something about someone, you inject pieces of yourself, you fill in the gaps with you. And so what does this do? It gives the sense that this person is more like you than they are. And so then you meet and you're like, you're nothing like me.
 
But you didn't know that because you were in love or lost with the illusion, the dream, the fantasy of that person. Go slow on dating apps in a way that is like you go slower when you meet in person. You're building.
 
Peter, thank you so much for joining us today and helping unravel how relationships come together, but more importantly, how they come apart and the role that ghosting plays and all this. Really appreciate your insights. My pleasure.
 
Thank you for having me. And thank you for tuning in to Securing Sexuality, your source of information you need to protect yourself and your relationships. Securing Sexuality is brought to you by the Bound Together Foundation, a 501c3 non-profit.
 
From the bedroom to the cloud, we're here to help you navigate safe sex in a digital age. Be sure to check out our website, securingsexuality.com, for links to more information about the topics we discussed here today, as well as our live events. And join us again for more fascinating conversations about the intersection of sexuality and technology.
 
Have a great week!

The sex toy industry has long been associated with stigma and misconceptions, often leaving individuals feeling excluded and marginalized. However, in recent years, there has been a growing movement towards promoting inclusivity and accessibility within this industry. Here we explore just some of the various ways in which barriers are being broken down and how the sex toy industry is becoming more inclusive and accessible for all individuals.


Diverse Representation:

One of the key aspects of promoting inclusivity in the sex toy industry is through diverse representation. Historically, the industry has predominantly catered to cisgender, heterosexual individuals, leaving other identities feeling overlooked. However, companies are now recognizing the importance of representing a wide range of identities and experiences. This includes featuring models with different body types, ethnicities, and genders in their marketing materials, as well as creating products specifically designed for marginalized communities.


Non-Binary and Trans-Inclusive Products:

In recent years, there has also been a significant increase in the availability of non-binary and trans-inclusive products. These products are specifically designed to cater to the unique needs and desires of individuals who may not conform to traditional gender norms. This includes items such as packers, binders, and prosthetics, which can help individuals express their gender identity and enhance their sexual experiences. By offering these products, the sex toy industry is actively working towards creating a more inclusive and affirming space for all individuals.


Accessibility for Individuals with Disabilities:

Another crucial aspect of promoting inclusivity in the sex toy industry is ensuring accessibility for individuals with disabilities. Historically, many sex toys have been designed with able-bodied individuals in mind, which has left those with disabilities feeling isolated and excluded. However, companies are now recognizing the need to create products that cater to a diverse range of abilities. This includes products with ergonomic designs, easy-to-use controls, and adaptable features that can be used by individuals with limited mobility or sensory impairments. By prioritizing accessibility, the sex toy industry is making significant strides towards creating a more inclusive and empowering environment for all individuals.


Education and Empowerment:
​
In addition to creating inclusive products, the sex toy industry is also focusing on education and empowerment. Many companies now offer educational resources, workshops, and online platforms that provide information on sexual health, consent, and the safe and responsible use of sex toys. By equipping individuals with knowledge and resources, the industry is empowering them to make informed decisions about their sexual well-being. This education also helps to break down barriers by challenging societal taboos and misconceptions, ultimately promoting a more inclusive and sex-positive culture.

​

​The sex toy industry is undergoing a significant transformation as it strives to become more inclusive and accessible for all individuals. By embracing diverse representation, creating non-binary and trans-inclusive products, prioritizing accessibility, and focusing on education and empowerment, the industry is breaking down traditional barriers and promoting a more inclusive and sex-positive culture. However, it is important to acknowledge that there is still work to be done. Continued efforts towards inclusivity and accessibility will help to ensure that the sex toy industry is a space where all individuals feel seen, valued, and empowered to explore their sexuality.







Key Concepts:​
​

• Adaptive tech for safe sex
• Pleasure equity for people with disabilities
• Intimacy and information security
• Inclusivity in sexuality
• Aging population and safe sex
• De-sexualization of disabled and elderly people
• Adaptive technology in the sex toy industry
• Intimate justice for all individuals
• Accessible sex toys for people with disabilities
• Empowering perspective on sexuality

Hello and welcome to Securing Sexuality. The podcast where we discuss the intersection of intimacy 

and information security. I'm Wolf Goerlich. 

He's a hacker and I'm Stefani Goerlich. 

She is a sex therapist and together we're gonna discuss what safe sex looks like in a digital age. Today we have somebody super cool. I have been told she is the life of every party coming to join us.

Today we have Mona Terry, who is the chief victims officer at the Identity Theft Resource Center. She uses her experience and knowledge to guide and enhance the organization's victim service. With over 20 years of experience in this field, Mona has developed a very deep understanding of the challenges facing victims of identity crimes.

She has been instrumental in developing supportive approaches to help crime victims, including recovery plans and education programmes designed to help the people and their families affected by identity theft crimes. Prior to being at the ITRC, Mona was at the Better Business Bureau in San Diego as their director of operations. She has a bachelor's degree in human development from UCSD and a master's degree in business administration.

Mona, Thank you so much for joining us. I'm excited to have you here. 

Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here, and I am fun at parties. Thank you very much. As much as I talk about identity crimes and want want I actually am pretty fun.

You know, we get that a lot like, Well, I'll be talking to someone I'll be like, Do you know how easy it is to take down the power grid?

It's like, Oh, I bet you are fun at parties.

And then I get the sexy version, right?

The oh, you specialise in BDSM & kink. That must be hot.

I mean, no, let me talk to you about, like, pathological paraphilia. So we are the life of the party podcast. Today we have three different types of crime here to bring down any cocktail conversation and make it safer and more aware.

Or is it my job?

So, Mona, tell us a little bit about you.

How did you get started doing this kind of work?

That's a good question. So I actually started - I wasn't sure what I wanted to do when I graduated college. I was taking some marketing classes that I might want to do that. And then we had someone come in from the Better Business Bureau and talk about truth in advertising. I thought that was super interesting. And then she showed up in another class that I had about truth in advertising and turned out they were hiring. But they were hiring for someone to process complaints. And so I started working with processing complaints against businesses and learned about scams and fraud. And I like to say I got bitten by the consumer protection bug. And so I that became my passion. I just loved, finding out what the tactics are that scammers were using what the thieves were doing that was negative. And then how can we protect consumers and victims from that? And then I was able to segue that into identity theft, specifically. So identity theft was part of what I did at the BBB. But at ITRC, I got to really kind of hone that in. And so it's been just a really neat intersection for me, for really kind of staying ahead of scams and fraud and what's out there, and what the threat actors are doing. It's really interesting to see those tactics. And then it's really rewarding to see the help that we can provide the victims of these crimes.

And that's one of the reasons we reached out because so often, in this podcast, the question is, what do you do then? If this happens, we're like, I don't know. I guess we'll have to figure that out. And this happens again and again. We were recently at a conference we were sponsoring and people are coming up and like, Oh, this person just had their identity stolen. I just heard about this and what do you do? And I'm like, I don't know. So I want to ask you so many questions about that. But before I do tell, tell me a little bit more you mentioned threat actors and I get that. But maybe we should expand that a little bit more for the audience and tell me a little bit more about what makes this particular crime so unique, right? Especially as compared to other crimes like the crimes my wife has been implicated for. 

Implicated for - Well, I will have you know that I have never been indicted. 

Perfect.

All right, so the one that makes identity theft unique, I think part of it is sometimes, you know the criminal. Sometimes you don't. And in a majority of instances, when people contact us, they don't know who the criminal is. And usually, a lot of times, they never find out who the criminal is. And your identity can be stolen in multiple ways, so it can be like old school. Someone can go through your mate. Someone can steal your purse or your wallet. And then there's all the stuff that's out on the Internet, right on and and just on the web.

And so people don't really know what's happening or how it's happened. But all of a sudden, now they're finding out they're a victim of identity theft, and it happens in so many different areas, so it can be financial accounts. It can be a government account. It can be a medical account. There's so many different ways.

I feel like, and it's also something that is universal. So I think there's a big misconception that, you know, people don't want my my credit, like people are aren't going to bother me. I have a low credit score. I'm not someone who's an interesting target. But really, anyone that has valid identity credentials is a target, because those credentials can be sold and resold and used.

And, so really, this is victim agnostic. It doesn't matter who the person is or what they're going through. The fact that they have valid credentials is enough.

That's something we've heard for years in the private industry space, right? Oh, no one would want to attack me. I'm just a company, you know, it's the same mentality like, Oh, no one would attack me. My credit card is not that high. My limit is what it is. And what would I have to gain?But really it seems like a target of opportunity. 

Absolutely. So I have an interesting firsthand example of this. it's about 20 years old at this point. So, Wolf, you don't need to panic. So, literally 20 years. I think it was like 2003, I got a discover card in the mail with a $10,000 limit, and I was 23 years old and working part time in the nonprofit sector. So I called Discover and I said, This is clearly a mistake, Like this credit card limit is half of my annual salary and they looked it up and they're like, nope, It's you. They verified my social. They did all the things. So, like, this is this is pre-approved. This is your card. And so I did activate it, and I think I paid, like my credit card bill or something. I did not go crazy. I didn't run up $10,000 but I had it for a couple months. And then my mother in law at the time called me because she had a $10,000 Discover card on her credit report that she had never applied for.

And when we dug into it, it turns out that somehow I had been given with my name and my social, a pre-approved Discover card with her credit report and her identity, her credit score. It was showing up on her report, but it was issued in my name. And this is where it gets really fun. When we started trying to untangle this with the credit card company, we also found out that somebody, a gentleman in New Mexico, was using my social Security number to work. He had no credit report.

He had no, outstanding debts, no bills, no crimes. But somebody had been filing taxes in New Mexico using my social security number, and I'm still not entirely sure how any of that happened. It was the most convoluted thing I've ever heard of, and yet it literally just showed up in the mail. It was something that none of us - and I'm assuming the gentleman in New Mexico did not apply for a credit card because it came to my address. But of the three of us, none of us went through a process that you would think would result in that happening. None of us applied for a card. None of us did anything. And yet it took about almost a year to untangle all of that. 

Wow.

Yeah, we're hearing more about that happening recently. Where usually historically with ITRC, people who contact us have one main issue right. So someone set up a new credit card in my name or someone took over my bank account or my account with Amazon. Right? But now we're hearing more of that happening

Actually I heard about this one issue, and as I started to dig into it, I found out that I'm a victim of different types of identity crimes because that's how we would categorize that, which is just scary, because it's not just one issue. Now it's multiple issues. So 20 years ago, my response to this was very similar to what Wolf just described. 20 years old, my actual credit card has, like a $250 limit. I'm a college student. Nobody's gonna get a house in my name. So why should I care? And my thought at the time was, if the lovely gentleman in New Mexico is paying his taxes and holding down a job, why should I care? And I've never actually seen anything about that ever again. Nothing shows up on my credit report. It doesn't seem to be an issue any longer, but I guess my question is, should I have cared, and if so, Why?

Yes, you absolutely should have cared. I can't say that at 20 years long I would have either, absolutely. Because the thieves sit on that information. And so a lot of times what we'll see, even with things like data breaches right, that your information is leaked and you get maybe credit monitoring for a year. And you're like, OK, I'm good. Nothing's happened in the past year, and then maybe two years goes by and nothing's happened. Three years goes by nothing, right? So then you kind of become like, OK, that was probably a one time thing. I'm fine. And then, bam, they sell it. And now it's active again. And now maybe you're getting more credit cards, right? So you just never know once that information is taken when it's going to be used again, and that does make me sound like not fun at parties.

But, it's but it's true, right?

You just don't really don't know when when it's going to be misused again, and at what point you're going to be in your life or that may have a really serious impact and and this really concerns me?

Because I am obviously reasonably paranoid. I've taken a lot of steps to protect my data. Taken a lot of steps to scrub me off the Internet.

and yet I know I've been a victim of several, data breaches because who hasn't, Are you saying that I I'm still at risk, and it sounds like you are.

But how How would I What do I do to protect myself?

Like, proactively?

Is there anything I can do?

I'm I'm sure you've taken a lot of these steps. I think when it comes to financial accounts, the best thing to do is to freeze your credit.

that way no one can open a new account using your Social Security number.

I think staying vigilant. So monitoring bank statements, monitoring the explanation of benefits that come from the medical companies.

really, It's It's really just staying vigilant, I think is the biggest thing. So freezing your credit.

So no new financial accounts, and then just, you know, making sure you do all the typical things that everyone's hearing about, unique passphrases on each on each site that you're on, that you have a user name and password for, you know, if you receive emails that you're that look suspicious, go to the source to verify if it's real or not, and especially with a I these scam emails are looking more and more and more legitimate.

write the text messages are looking more legitimate.

go to the source.

So it's really, I think, a combination of putting some of those preventative measures in place and then just I, I think, without trying to worry people, right?

Just making sure that you're double checking all your all your statements.

make sure if anything seems out of the ordinary. Better to double check to see.

OK, wait. Is something happening here or No, it's nothing I need to worry about than to just let it go, and assume that nothing's happening. Rather than take that proactive stance, you would be surprised at how many services I am still paying for, because I don't check my account statements closely. There was something that I was paying for for like, seven months.

I'm like, I don't even remember signing up for this so that this concerns me, because if there were those types of things. I imagine I would miss it. But the the the freezing, your your credit and those other steps I think are are really good ones.

I suspect if it happened to me, it would take me a while to to notice, right?

And I think with the credit monitoring stuff, too, right. I think that's absolutely an option. We always say, Look, you can wash your car yourself or you can pay someone else to do it right so you can monitor your own credit reports. You can look at your statements if you have another, and there are so many resources out there that people can pay for to do that for them.

you know, I think that's great, too kind of whatever works. But staying vigilant is just so important. We don't do sponsorships on the show, so we don't necessarily have official recommendations, which means that we can ask experts like you what you recommend.

So when you talk about credit monitoring or those sort of services, do you have one that you prefer that you point people to, when you're working with a victim of identity theft, we don't So, as a nonprofit. We also do not endorse or recommend companies.

And honestly, we're big on on empowering people to take a right to take ownership of those pieces themselves so you can get your free credit reports through a credit report.com.

You know, it's a matter of monitoring the statements that that are offered by the companies that you have accounts with.

really kind of those things, right?

Monitoring your email.

And again, we're always here as a resource.

you know, shameless plug for a nonprofit, But at IC RC, if someone says, Hey, I got something, this just seems weird, right?

There's always a resource out there, and you can come to us and say I'm not sure about this.

so but we will really empower people to do that for themselves. So tell us about ITRC.

How did you guys get started?

How long have you been around?

What do you do?

Give us the scoop?

so we were started in 1999.

and the owners were victims of identity theft, and they realised that there was just a need there to help assist victims of identity theft. And as I think as as the Times have changed, as as the the tactics have changed, we really broaden from identity theft specifically to identity crime.

where if anyone's credentials are being used, we're happy to help. So if you were contacted by a scammer and gave them your personal information, your information was in a data breach. Someone's actively misusing your information.

anything that touches kind of US based identity credentials where it's at risk. For whatever reason, you're not comfortable with what may or may not be happening right where you live or and you're worried about your identity credentials being misused.

we have advice and assistance that we can provide and steps that people can take.

and what our advisors do is we listen to every unique situation and then come up with a custom plan for that person.

an example I like to give. That may be, different is, for example, if we have someone we always tell people to lock up, right, their credit cards lock up anything you don't need to have on you Don't carry it with your Social security card.

but if you live in a place where you're maybe housing insecure or you don't trust the people that you live with. It might be more safe for you to carry your identity documents with you, right wherever you go.

so we take a look at kind of holistically what's happening with that person, what they're willing to share. And then we give them the best, whether it's proactive tips, protected tips to protect your information and then for people who are actually going through an issue where someone's misusing their information.

kind of all the steps they need to take, we tend to have more kind of that insider info like, Oh, you need to fill out this form or use this phrasing, right to get to the right department, that kind of thing. So we can really kind of give those insider tips to try make that recovery process, as seamless as possible.

But it's it's a long journey, and you guys know it's it's it takes a while. It takes a long time, and it takes a lot of patience.

But, what we do is we walk, alongside victims as long as it takes for them to recover you had mentioned.

You know, sometimes it's not safe to lock things up at home. I used to work with very high risk young people, and sometimes they were, you know, kids in foster care, teenagers in foster care. And it was incredibly common in my work to discover that a child had had their identity stolen by one of the adults in their lives.

They might be eight years old and have tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt. Or they might be 17 and about to age out of the system and realise that they can't get an apartment because they have tonnes of rental defaults on their credit.

What happens in those instances where it's not an anonymous person behind a keyboard?

It's your family. It's your friends. I think it really depends on the individual.

So, my husband had an issue where he was. He found out once he became an adult, that his mom used his Social Security number to open up an account for electricity at home.

He's like, I'm not going to go after my mom. I'm not going to report her. We needed lights on in the house I'm not going to say anything right. So I think that, there's the recovery piece for the individual who needs that credit. And then there's the people who really want their pound of flesh to go. I know who the thief is, and I want to go after them.

but it's so much more complex when you know who the thief is.

so what we focus on is OK, what's your goal?

Is your goal for the recovery, right. So you can fix your credit.

then it's a matter of right do. Providing all the proof that you are a minor, that you couldn't have opened these accounts. All of those pieces.

but it really is, it's really emotionally impactful when they know the thief.

and we are right now. We have a grant to work with, trafficking survivors, survivors, partner violence and foster youth. Because we know that someone else is typically controlling their credentials, and so they are more at risk for identity theft.

but when it's a trusted adult, especially that's that's really hard.

So really, we tend to focus on what's the goal?

The ultimate goal and what they're trying to reach. And let's focus on that. The intimate partner violence and the sex trafficking obviously is near and dear to the topic of of this podcast. So as you move forward on that, if you want to come back, we'd love to hear more and and dig deeper, as as that goes forward.

Yeah, we'd love to. We're learning a lot right now about what are the types of issues that are being faced and and kind of.

What's the emotional impact of that?

And what's the sociological impact we're going to start looking at?

You know, how do folks who are victims of identity crimes and victims of other crimes interact with society too?

So I'd be happy to share once we get some more information as we start to gather it.

Yeah, absolutely.

For for our our general listener, though, I've I've got a two part question, right?

And, the first part is like, how how what should they be thinking about what signs should be happening?

We've mentioned a couple of them like I see something on my charges or whatever, but how How do they know to reach out to you guys?

usually there's some sort of red flag.

so usually it's, people have been locked out of their account.

and it's not just that. I forgot my password. I wasn't able to get in.

Right, But I got locked out of my account, and I haven't changed. I know my password.

I was reviewing my credit report and saw some accounts on there that don't belong or my score is way lower than it should be.

I received a letter in the mail that someone tried to open an account in my name. And even though it wasn't successful, now I'm worried. And that might be another. Another way.

those are the most probably the most common, reasons why people tend to reach out.

and then a lot of we get a lot of inquiries about scams. A lot of the scammer already had my name and my phone number.

Do I need to be worried?

they had my address. They knew the last four of my social, or I'm consistently contacted by scammers.

is that does that mean that my identity is out there and I'm at risk.

so if if if And if you are on a list for scams, I mean, that's another great reason to reach out, just even just to protect your information.

Or if you did give out your information unknowingly. And we've had a lot of times and especially I feel like this year we're hearing more about people.

just like Googling or searching for legitimate phone numbers and then landing in in a different place, right?

So we have scammers who are putting up ads and things like look legitimate. So people aren't scrolling to the actual site for that account holder. They're just clicking on whatever the first thing is that they see. And then they realise I thought I was talking to my bank. I thought I was talking to, right a store that I have an account with, and it turns out it wasn't them.

And so that's another good way to go.

Hey, let's let me before anything else happens. I haven't seen anything weird yet. That's a great time to reach out to.

Got it, Got it. So I can't get into my account. I've noticed new new accounts in my name or attempted to get new accounts in my name that I didn't do.

I'm getting a bunch of scams, you know, targeted at me. They seem to know more information than they should.

So one of these, these things happens, and we're like, What are we gonna do?

Well, we know what we're gonna do. We're gonna call, you know, ITRC, we're gonna contact you guys.

what happens when someone reaches out?

We walk them through, kind of we start with, tell us what's happening. Tell us what it is that you're going through and what your concerns are. And then from there, we try to piece together what we think might be at risk and car or compromise.

So for us, it's easiest to look at what information is out there, right?

So if it's your Social Security number, well, we know now that people can open financial accounts, right?

So depending on what information is either out there or the information that someone's worried about, then we start talking about, preventive or protective measures for those accounts.

so if it's someone you know hacked into my social media account and changed my password.

OK, well, you might want to look at if you're using the same user name and password for other accounts. Obviously they had that one. Go change those.

if yeah, it really it really just depends on what information is out there, and what it is that they're looking to protect. And then depending on what that information is, we'll tell them kind of what's the most likely thing to happen with that information and then what protective steps they can take.

How does somebody know what information is out there?

That's a good question.

I mean, at this point, to be honest, we just assume everything's out there.

right between data breaches and scams and everything.

I mean, you can certainly look. There's a lot of, like background check companies or other companies that you can go to that say, Hey, you know, there's dark web monitoring.

I know that folks will get dark, dark web monitoring emails saying, Hey, we know that your Social Security number is on the dark web.

there's, a website. Have I been ped you can put in your phone number or your email address and see if that's been compromised. So there are specific sites where you can put in specific information to see if that's been compromised.

but sometimes you really don't know.

I mean, if someone opened up a bank account in your name, you really, if you didn't get any notification about it and there's no fraudulent activity happening in it, you might not know we just went to the movies this weekend.

And, while we do not recommend products or services, necessarily, I will absolutely recommend movies. And I'm curious.

Have you seen the movie Thelma yet?

I have not. It is an action heist movie starring a 92 year old actress, and the entire plot line centres around exactly what you're describing. She gets a call, say, from what sounds like actually doesn't even sound like her grandson.

She says, This doesn't sound like you.

Are you OK?

A call claiming to be her grandson claiming to be in jail, and they actually don't compromise her electronic accounts. They ask her to mail them cash, and she does. And when her family realises that she's been scammed, they and the police both tell her, Well, it's cash, it's gone. There's nothing you can do.

And she hijacks a motor scooter from her friend at the retirement home, and the two of them set off to find her scammer and to get her money back.

And, first of all, it's hilarious for anybody in Wolf's world. Anybody that does the cybersecurity thing because the most intense degree of hacking is her grandson on the phone, walking her through how to find the X button when it's not an obvious colour, like the X can be any colour and she'll click the X and go I'm in. So it's got a lot of, like, cute, sort of like insider tropes.

But it was also, incredibly humanising of the victims of this, And I think so. Many of us that are younger that have grown up like immersed in the Internet, immersed in media literacy, immersed in suspicion, tend to shame a lot of identity theft victims.

There tends to be a lot of well, why didn't you see that?

How didn't you know?

It's so obvious?

How could you fall for it?

And so one of the things I loved about this specifically was that it showed the impact. It showed the humanity of somebody who's been victimised in this way and the emotional toll it takes the fear and the, sense of urgency And that got me thinking way back in the day.

not long after I was, you know, sharing my social with the lovely gentleman in New Mexico.

I did some consulting work for the National Centre for Victims of Crime, and at the time they had an entire special group set up for identity theft victims. An entirely separate victim training. And I'm curious if you could talk a little bit about the emotional piece of this and why it might not be a violent crime.

But it is still a crime that is violating and talk to us about the experience, not logistically of surviving this, but of of emotionally dealing with it.

Well, I think you you hit the nail on the head.

It is violating, right, And I think that so many people, right, you're you the way you're represented and and when you're buying things when you're financially is through your social security number, your name right?

These are things that are assigned to you as a person, and that's being violated or misused. That's someone misusing your. It's there's a sense of that really personal impact. So even if it is, the crime itself is impersonal. It feels very, very personal.

and I think it's and that's overwhelming. And I think that, it's it's hard to feel safe. If you feel like your personal information is out there and being misused, Well, it's like, Well, that's but that's me. And now someone's out there pretending to be me and doing all these things.

What else could they be doing?

That's not who I am. That's not who I identify with as a person, and so that's it's incredibly violating, and I think it's It's it's scary and it's it's it is really emotional.

I think that, you know, we have so many victims tell us that I mean that we found that the rate of people feeling suicidal doubled, year over year because of the severity of the types of identity theft and whether you know and severity is in the eye of the beholder.

Right?

So, like you said, people shame people all the time.

How Could you have all that?

How could you have not have known that I saw it on a social media group I was on.

Someone was alerting people to the group to say, Hey, watch out this person as a scammer and you know, a bunch of people piled on and said, Well, how could you not know they were a scammer?

They contacted me, too.

and it's the way these identity thieves play with people's emotions. It's hard to have that rational thought. You are thinking you're not thinking you feeling right, and so when you're in this place of panic and you know someone is pretending to me and they're doing terrible things, that's not who I am. I'm going to defend myself.

they're pretending to be someone that I love. Now I'm concerned about the person that I love, or they just The new tactic they're using is the scammers are getting someone on the phone and then passing it on to another person and then passing it on to another person. And people are on the phone for hours with these scammers, and it just wears them down.

So at that point you're really not thinking, and so that and that impact can be widespread. We have a lot of people who've also said, that one of the ongoing concerns they have is they don't trust anyone anymore because they don't know who they can and can't trust, especially if they don't know who the thief is.

And then if you do know who the thief is and they violated, right that trust in that way, it's just it can be really complex.

The point about suicidality, I think is really stunning. I don't know that people think about identity theft as something that can cause really significant mental health distress.

I know that that's kind of my job on the podcast, right?

I'm the therapist voice, but I'm This is not an area that I work in. And I'm curious.

Are there?

Are there people that are specialising in working with mental health and identity theft or with people who are coping with that sense of powerlessness and mistrust or betrayal?

I don't know. That's a great question. I think we are.

we've had people ask us that same question.

And I think that because there's a lot of shame around identity theft and people feeling like, Well, how could I have become a victim?

they're sharing these things with us anonymously. That that's how they're feeling.

so I really don't know.

I don't know that we've ever talked to someone who was feeling that much in distress and then turned around and said I was able to get help or I need help, right?

I need that type of of help.

so I don't know if that that's happening. If that people are addressing that or if people are addressing the emotions around identity theft, along with other types of things they may be going through Well, there's a There's a call to action to our therapists out there. There you go. Start start offering a service to help people.

And, you know, this is in, aspect that we've been beating the drum on for a long time, which is we need to destigmatize and especially it's and it starts from the security people. I know it's our fault. We send the phishing emails and then we say, Look at you, you should have done this wow, Wow! Wow.

And you know, we've got to recognise that it is very easy to fall for these scams. And there there are certain things that you can you can do you can be aware of when you feel scared or pressured or whatnot because that is usually an early indication that someone's trying to take advantage of you and really take a moment and pause and collect your thoughts.

It's one of the strongest security controls, but that's not easy to do in in these moments.

No, I think we move so quickly, right?

And decision making. A lot of things are happening so quickly. I think you just get kind of accustomed to making the decisions and going. And that pause, like you said, is really, really important and listening to your gut, I think people don't trust their gut enough to now. I'm just being paranoid.

The lack of protection seems really systemic. Whenever these things have happened and people have reached out to the FBI or to the local police. Oftentimes it The reports that I'm hearing back are well, they said, Well, it's not enough money or OK, we'll make a note of it, but it didn't really help.

And so I'm I'm so glad you're out there and your organisation is out there in the front lines as a resource for people. I in a more broad, systemic way.

Is there any movement?

Do you think, or do you see to, to address this?

Other than saying people need to defend themselves right?

That's always the answer, right?

Like, how do you do stop anything?

Well, people need to take personal responsibility.

OK, that's great. But there's only so many things we can take personal responsibility for.

Is there any more of a broader conversation happening at a systemic level at a legal level to help provide better protections for people?

I think there's more. I I'm seeing more conversations around, providing the resources to the folks that support victims of identity crimes. I think it's become ubiquitous enough, and I think that there are so many victims out there that I think that there's, a more concerted effort to realise that they, they they they need to go somewhere. These victims need some sort of help.

and what does that support look like?

So I'm starting to see more of these conversations happening around. It's not just focusing on dollar amounts and how the theft happened.

But how do we support then?

The victims that are You know, that result from all of these types of crimes?

so I think it is right. It's systemic. And I think that that's again, like, that's why the ITRC. Is here.

but I am seeing more conversations around. Let's support the people who are out there supporting the victims. Good.

So if somebody wanted to connect with the ITRC, what is the best way to reach you to, get more information to ask for help?

everything short of carrier pigeon, you can go to our website. I ID theft centre.org.

you can call our toll free number. You can chat with us on our website. You can send us a text through the same toll free number.

you can email us. You can write us a letter.

so pretty much any way that you can think of that.

You want to reach out?

they can reach out and get help with that. Thank you so much.

I mean, this is something that comes up so often, How do I deal with this?

I've never had a good answer and it's been just a delight, having you on to walk through it and to to give us some tips.

And, you know, we've been doing this podcast going on 100 episodes and I've taken some notes about some things I need to change. So thank you. Thank you so much for having me. It's been great talking with you guys and thank you, everyone for tuning into securing sexuality. Your source for the information you need to protect yourself and your relationships.

Securing sexuality is brought to you by the Bound Together Foundation a 501 C three nonprofit in the bedroom to the cloud We're here to help you navigate safe sex in the digital age. Be sure to check out our website securing sexuality.com for links to the I PR C and more information about the topics we've talked about here today as well as our live events. And don't forget until July 30th.

We are in a micro grant cycle, So if you are interested in applying for a micro grant, go to bound together foundation.org and look for that information and join us again here, right here for more fascinating conversation about the intersection of sexuality and technology. Have a great week.

​

Cancel culture has become a prevalent phenomenon in today's society, where individuals are swiftly ostracized and boycotted for their controversial opinions or actions. While cancel culture is primarily associated with the entertainment industry and public figures, its impact extends far beyond these realms. In this blog post, we will explore the implications of cancel culture on information security, delving into the potential risks and challenges it poses in safeguarding sensitive data and protecting individuals' privacy.
1. The Rise of Cancel Culture:
Cancel culture has gained momentum in recent years, driven by the power of social media platforms. With the ability to instantly mobilize and amplify voices, cancel culture has become an influential force capable of toppling careers, damaging reputations, and even causing financial losses. While its intentions often stem from the pursuit of justice and accountability, the impact on information security is a concerning aspect that demands attention.
2. Social Engineering and Doxxing:
One of the significant risks associated with cancel culture is the potential for social engineering and doxxing. Social engineering refers to the manipulation of individuals to disclose confidential information, such as passwords or personal data. Cancel culture can inadvertently create an atmosphere of fear and hostility, encouraging individuals to exploit personal information to harm those they disagree with. Doxxing, the act of revealing and sharing private information publicly, can lead to severe consequences, including identity theft, harassment, and even physical harm.
3. Online Vigilantism and False Accusations:
In the cancel culture landscape, accusations can spread like wildfire without proper verification or due process. This phenomenon can give rise to online vigilantism, where individuals take it upon themselves to expose supposed wrongdoers. Unfortunately, false accusations can have devastating consequences, including reputational damage, loss of employment, and even legal ramifications. Moreover, false accusations can divert valuable resources and attention from legitimate cybersecurity threats, leaving organizations vulnerable to real attacks.
4. Impact on a Culture of Open Dialogue:
The cancel culture's emphasis on silencing opposing viewpoints can hinder the creation of a culture of open dialogue, which is essential for information security. Healthy discourse and the ability to question prevailing ideas are crucial aspects of uncovering vulnerabilities and ensuring robust security measures. When individuals fear the repercussions of expressing unpopular opinions or reporting potential security flaws, the overall security posture weakens, leaving organizations more susceptible to cyber threats.
5. Implications for Privacy and Data Protection:
In the age of cancel culture, privacy and data protection face significant challenges. The exposure of personal information through doxxing can lead to severe privacy breaches and expose individuals to identity theft or online harassment. Additionally, the fear of having personal data exploited during social engineering attacks can erode trust in digital platforms, discouraging individuals from sharing necessary information for effective security measures. Balancing the need for transparency and accountability with the protection of individual privacy rights becomes increasingly complex in the cancel culture landscape.
6. Mitigating Cancel Culture's Impact on Information Security:
While cancel culture presents genuine concerns for information security, organizations and individuals can take steps to mitigate its impact. Some key strategies include:

• Strengthening cybersecurity measures: Organizations should invest in robust security infrastructure, including firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and encryption protocols. Regular security audits and employee awareness training can also help mitigate potential risks.
• Encouraging a culture of inclusion and open dialogue: By fostering an environment where diverse perspectives are respected and encouraged, organizations can create a more resilient security posture. This includes providing channels for anonymous reporting of security vulnerabilities without fear of retaliation.
• Promoting digital literacy and critical thinking: Empowering individuals with the necessary skills to identify misinformation, practice responsible social media usage, and critically evaluate the sources of information can reduce the spread of false accusations and the subsequent impact on information security.

Cancel culture undoubtedly has far-reaching consequences beyond its immediate targets. When it comes to information security, the risks and challenges posed by cancel culture demand attention and proactive measures. By promoting open dialogue, strengthening cybersecurity measures, and prioritizing privacy and data protection, organizations and individuals can strive towards a more secure and resilient digital landscape amidst the cancel culture phenomenon.


Key Concepts:

• Doxing and cancel culture
• Origins of cancel culture
• Holding individuals and organizations accountable
• Overton window and societal norms
• Online interactions and perception
• Being mindful of online posts
• Kindness as a security control
  

Hello and welcome to Securing Sexuality. The podcast where we discuss the intersection of intimacy 

and information security. I'm Wolf Goerlich. 

He is a hacker. And I'm Stefani Goerlich. 

She is a sex therapist. And together we're going to discuss what safe sex looks like in a digital age.

And we're back. We're back in the air. We're back behind a microphone.

Did you miss us, everyone?

I hope so. I missed us, man. It's been a rough week. 

I wouldn't know I've been sleeping. 

Hm. That's true. That's true.

So we were in New Orleans for about a week at the Which conference was this?

National Organisation of Forensic Social Workers National Conference?

Yes. And so Securing Sexuality was a sponsor. So I got to do booth duty, and you got to go to all the great talks and learn. And listen, I did. I got to learn quite a bit. I got to meet some interesting new people.

Um, and I got covid.

So, you know, that's that's how this works now, these days, right?

Well, to be clear, we got home and we're fine for a few days, so I still think it was being home that caught us covid.

I mean, that could be, uh, it really in in this world today, who even knows how somebody gets covid you just it it just, you know, on a on a what bi annual basis, You're just gonna sleep for 20 hours a day and not be able to taste anything?

No, no, but I'm I'm sticking with this because from, like, Valentine's Day to the end of May, you tell me we weren't home for more than a few hours.

Uh, we were We were not really home for more than 72 hours. Valentine's Day until May.

Yeah, that a lot of travel. It was a lot of travel, but we were healthy. There's no sickness.

I mean, granted, I was masking on planes, but we're we're fine and that we're home for nearly four days and then boom.

I mean, it happens.

And and considering the fact that I got food poisoning in New Orleans, I mean, was I really healthy when I got home?

We don't know the world. We never know. But so as we're at this conference, we got asked a lot of things, right. We got asked some of the normal things.

Like, um, how do I protect my data?

What happens if someone's getting revenge?

Porn. I've got a client who's got this issue. I've got a client.

Who's that issue?

Um, why are you here at all?

This is a question I could ask quite frequently.

Yeah, that was the biggest question was we get this everywhere, I think.

Hey, you have sex in the name.

Why are you trying to talk to us?

Yes, yes, I think you know, in hindsight, we should have come up with something very clever about the name of this.

Oh, wait. We're coming up on our 100th episode. Maybe we should have a rename the podcast contest. There you go. There you go. Let's do that. Anyone who wants to send us in a a great name, we'll give you a gift certificate.

But But, I mean, if if it's the best name and we use it obviously, uh, void where prohibited blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Not sponsored the all the other legal things because we're making this up on the fly.

However, one of the questions that was coming up was around doxing and dog pilling and cancellation which occurred to me. There's this really interesting thing that seems to happen.

And I, I don't know if Stefani, do you agree with this?

I don't know if our audience will agree with us, but in general very, very generalised. It seems like, um, more left leaning people tend to ask us about dog pling are doxing and more right wing people tend to be very concerned about. If I say the wrong thing, I'll be cancelled.

Yes, although I feel like that's changing. I feel like, you know, the last 910 months have really just been horseshoe theory in action. And there's been a lot more overlap between those two than I might have expected this time last year.

Well, certainly from a political perspective, but it is always been interesting to me to see that sort of dichotomy, right?

And it's basically the same sort of thing.

You know, you you are online. You draw attention from people who have, uh, otherwise bad intentions, and they go after you. They they try to find all your personal information and release it and and create, um, at hominid attacks or physical attacks on you.

AKA doxing, which is, uh, you know, derived from the word of documents or docs.

Um, I don't know why my, uh, world likes an X, but, you know, picture element, pixel document pile docs who knows anyways, And then the cancel culture thing is is very, um it is very much the opposite side of things. And it's usually, you know, when I think cancel culture, I usually think like you are a celebrity getting cancelled or you're a business getting cancelled.

But generally, when people are asking about this, uh, and coming up to us at a booth, they're actually thinking about like, oh, people start attacking me or, you know, start withholding references or referrals or any number of things because of my opinions. So both seem to be like a form of dog pilling in my mind.

Yeah, I would agree with that. And I feel like there is this sort of cultural moment where we're debating what's holding people accountable versus what's punishing people for just disagreeing with you. And that's a nuanced thing. And I don't know that that's where you and I wanna go with this today. I don't know that there is a right or wrong answer.

I think each individual instance of doxing and dog piling probably has elements of both involved. Dog pling by definition means there's lots of people in the heat of the conflict. And so some of them probably genuinely think that you are wrong and should be held accountable for that. And other people probably just think you're wrong because you're not like them and therefore screw you.

And that is not something that you and I are going to be able to parse out.

But, um, we might be able to help people figure out what to do if they're concerned about these things. Absolutely, absolutely. But one of the reasons why I bring up that split was in doing research for this podcast.

I was very interested to see that, even though that was like my intuition going into this, that some of the research supports us, right?

Like the alt rights weapon of choice tends to be doxing, and the the left tends to come from a call out or call in culture, which is apparently from what I was some of the research I was reading the the source of cancel culture right the origin story of cancel culture. Tell me more about the origin story of cancel culture.

You, you I. I don't know that. I knew that there was an origin story and now I want to hear it.

Well, you know, again, this comes from this idea of call out or call in culture. It is originated as being a form of holding your your peers accountable. It evolved, and I'm I'm again. I'm summarising some of the research I was reading for this podcast. It evolved into this idea of holding, um, celebrity is accountable or holding businesses accountable.

This idea that because of the nature of social media because of the nature of online, uh, the online world that you know, organisations or individuals or groups that heretofore had as much power could have an asymmetrical influence on celebrities or on businesses based on what was going on. So and the conversation around cancel culture.

Um, based on anecdotal evidence and based on some high profile cases, you know, really came out of this idea that we're all holding each other accountable. And now that we're online, we can hold people of of power organisations with clout accountable and and make our voices known. So it's sort of like asymmetric punching up, uh, approach. Yeah. So that makes sense to me.

I think when you said origin story, I was, you know, settling in and getting my blanket and my hot cocoa. And I was ready for you to tell me the story of the very first ever cancellation. The very first ever dog pile.

Um, and I don't know if that's actually something that we know about.

Do we know when this first started or who the first, like target actor was?

All right.

Are you ready for this?

I mean, I'm always ready for a good story. I don't know that any of these stories are good, but I would think all right, if I was to think about, like, the earliest examples of cancer culture I don't know, social media has been around for a long time.

Uh, you know, I mean, long time in my lifetime, I guess I would say perhaps like the me too. Movement.

Uh, Harvey Weinstein.

Um, this this idea that there was a lot of allegations for a long, long period of time against him, but it's sort of solidified into a movement, and that brought with it sort of widespread condemnation of his, uh, of Harvey Weinstein's actions. So probably that would be an early example.

So, like 2016, 2017 ish, Uh, obviously, you know, there's a lot of comedians who got caught up in this, I think, like, uh, I don't know Roseanne Barr or Kevin Hart some of the things that they had said or done on their show.

And, of course, in Roseanne Barr's case, this was a couple years after Harvey Weinstein. This ended up getting her her show cancelled.

Right, so there. There's been a couple of different examples of this, this idea of sort of punching up, Um, but I think when most people ask us about cancel culture, they're not thinking, Oh, I might be the next Harvey Weinstein. Or I might be the next Roseanne Barr or Kevin Hart. I think they're more thinking about, like, just normal, everyday people getting attacked.

And this didn't this happen to you like you said something on Twitter once, and people reached out to the the owners of bound together counselling to get you in trouble. It wasn't even Twitter. It was Facebook and it was It was odd. It was something a local, a local venue here in Michigan was hosting, I don't know, some sort of protest or rally or qanon video screening.

I don't know what it was. It was completely inane. And I'm like, I also think this is a bad idea. I will probably not be going back to said venue. And it didn't seem like a big inflammatory statement. I wasn't making a a particularly unpopular political statement.

And yeah, somebody messaged, uh, my practise website through Facebook to let them know that their employee was a dirty commie that deserved to be fired.

And, you know, my boss is kind of a hard ass. My boss is is a taskmaster. But she's also pretty OK with my political opinions and my stances on where I choose to spend my money or not. So you know, that worked out OK, But it was It was interesting how quickly total strangers were willing to try and attack somebody's livelihood because of a difference of opinion.

And also for those who don't know you are self employed.

Indeed, I am the boss of which I speak.

So uh, I'm sure you had a good HR conversation with yourself. I'm on a P now.

Yeah, but what was interesting to me is I can find numbers about how many people get doxed. I cannot find numbers about how many people get cancelled, and I don't know if that's because, anecdotally, it's, you know, from the origin story on up. It's supposed to be celebrities. There's fewer of them.

I don't know if it's, you know, is situations like yours where someone reaches out to to you or rather, your your quote unquote, uh, management and tries to get you in trouble. I'm not I'm not really sure why that is.

But I, I was unable to find any sort of like, realistic statistics as to how many people get cancelled. I do have numbers about how many people get doxed, however, and how that's fascinating to me.

So what are those numbers and how do you know them?

Uh, there was a study done and recently this year that, uh, did a survey on this and collected a whole bunch of data and effectively found around 4% of people online reported being personally attacked and and docked in one way or another. So it's a significantly higher number of people who are being doxed than people who are being cancelled.

At least that is my assumption, because if it was around 4% I would be able to find that number.

What I think is fascinating is how how do we know this, like, how would we know who's being cancelled unless it becomes one of those stories that makes the news?

I remember years ago, this woman, I think she worked in PR, or marketing was getting on a plane and flying to a country in Africa. And she posted something definitely tone deaf and a little racist. And then it was like ha ha ha and hit post on her Facebook and then put her plane or her phone in aeroplane mode.

And by the time she landed, her entire world had blown up like her little racist aside had gone viral. People had contacted her boss. The company had already announced her termination before she even landed like it went crazy in the span of about 8 10 hours. But unless it's and I actually think they wrote, she wrote a book about that experience.

But I, I think that unless it's one of those cases that goes so viral and becomes so public that everybody hears about it, how would we even know how often situations like the angry Facebook or messaging somebody's boss results in somebody losing their job or not?

I mean, how would we even collect that data?

Yeah, you know, that's probably even a better earlier story of cancel culture. I think the story you're talking about was in in 2013.

Uh, Justine was her name. She was APR executive and her her tweet was something like, I'm going to Africa. I hope I don't get AIDS.

Um, and yes, everything blew up, and by the time she got to Cape Town, she was done. So that was that was 2013.

Now, that was the early days of of social media. It was certainly the early days of Twitter. Twitter was only out for a few years by then.

And I, I think this is gonna sound terrible.

What is the What is the the window?

You're always talking about the Overton window?

Yes. I think the Overton window has shifted because if someone said something like that today. I don't think it would have the same result.

Uh, for better or for worse.

I mean, it was a pretty shitty thing to say. It was a terrible thing to say, but I also think, uh, social media has grown in number of users and, unfortunately, grown, used to people saying terrible things. So do we need to explain. The Overton window is I. I know that that's something that I introduced to you.

But is that something that you think most people would be familiar with?

Well, go for it. And then I'm gonna ask Answer your question about how we know how many people are docked.

OK, uh, so the Overton window is this idea about what is normal and accepted at any given time. Culturally. And if you kind of imagine like AAA Y axis, you know, one end to the other 0 to 10, whatever Red to blue.

Um, picture the spectrum of your choice in your mind. The Overton window is what's considered normative on that spectrum. And the idea is that particularly outrageous behaviour or particularly like super super conservative and restrained behaviour becomes normalised or people become so desensitised to it that the window of what is normal moves. So if you think about like, um, well, let's let's use the racist language example.

What was normal and accepted in the American 18 fifties to 19 fifties is not acceptable now. And that's because, um, we became much more aware of our use of language, aware of the impact things had people were held accountable for inappropriate language and the Overton window of what is socially acceptable and normed has shifted from where it was when that accept, when that behaviour was acceptable.

So we're seeing that now a lot with, um, language around gender identity, right?

And it's not a good thing or a bad thing. It's just an idea of, um, how to conceptualise what's normal at a given point in time.

So when we talk about the Overton window shifting, we're saying something has happened that has moved society's idea of what's cool and OK in one way, one direction or another, Um, because of either more exposure or less exposure, right?

Right.

And so one of the things that is is very difficult to understand with cancer culture is what is going to be acceptable and what is not at any given period in time because, you know, there's a lot of things going on, right?

Like, is it a slow news day?

Is it Is it something that enough people will pick up and and comment on, or will it be pretty much ignored?

There's a lot of different factors in there that determines whether or not something will get will get picked up and will spread.

So, speaking of spreading, you said you would tell me, how do we know how often this happens?

How do we get those those numbers?

So someone needs to study it, right?

This is this is the thing someone needs to do. Do a survey on it.

Uh, there is a a group out there that did a study into the doxing side of things. Which is why we have better numbers than doxing.

Um, what is this group called?

Where is your name?

Safe home?

Did the the search and safe home went and spoke to more than 1000 adults and asked them if they were docked now safe home. Could have easily said, Hey, were you cancelled and we could have gotten, um, a a better idea as to whether or not that, uh, you know, the the comparison is things, but they specifically looked looked at docs.

And this is where that number of 4% of Americans which you can extrapolate to around 11 million people, uh, again, based on an end of 1000, uh, they also found that more than 90% of Web users were concerned about doxing today.

Um, so there's there's a high degree of concern there, Um, and seemingly a more clear signal of how many people get, uh, get attacked. That is fascinating to me. It also makes me wonder how common these ideas and these concepts have become. Because when you and I are at events like we were at New Orleans, we tend to get one of two extremes.

Either How do I protect myself from this or the wait?

What is that called again?

And so it's curious to me that the study was, you know, asking people. Have you had this experience because I'm actually still kind of curious. How many average, like non super hyper online, the way you and I tend to be people in America actually understand these terms or understand the the way in which they're used.

Like I would be curious to know how many of those us was like, Yeah, I have been docked because, you know, there was that news article that said that target, like there was a data leak and my my my info got out in the target leak. And I wonder how many people, like our parents age, are conflating that with doxing.

Uh, it's possible it's possible, but Doxing and really seemed to have taken off from looking at Google trends. Royce seemed to take off in the public consciousness around 2018 and and remained pretty high up until recently. So I it's possible for sure.

But your your point about the the data is is a good one, right?

And, you know, spoiler alert for those listening next week, we're gonna have someone who can help us navigate what to do when your personal data gets lost like the target example.

Um, but your your point there is is really good, right?

Just because your information is out there does not necessarily mean you're docked. It has to be the combination of someone searching for it or purchasing it off the dark web, Um, and collecting it together and putting into a package and then taking action against you with that information that really, you know, determines whether or not someone's been doxed.

Yeah, when I think about it, it it feels like the intent is really what defines doxing. If somebody takes your using the example you gave about me, you know, my Facebook posts and repost those somewhere which happens all the time. Sometimes people like Oh my God, that was a hilarious Twitter post. I'm screen capping it and I'm posting it on Reddit.

And sometimes people are like, Oh my God, that was a horribly offensive Twitter post. I'm screen capping it and I'm posting it on Reddit.

You know, the actions are the same.

Uh, in both instances, they're taking information that the poster originally put out there whether or not it becomes doxing really depends on what the goal of that repost is.

Is it to be like this person so clever?

Let's laugh at their joke versus pointing the online mob in the direction of a person with the goal of impacting them in offline ways.

That, to me, is what makes doxing doxing versus a data breach or just sharing something somebody else posted. Not everybody likes it when their online posts get Reshad. You know there are coming back to the accountability piece right now.

There are lots of Twitter accounts and instagram accounts that are dedicated to exposing some form of bad actor or another, you know, like environmental, um, your responsibility or racist language or any number of pet causes. And if somebody takes a something that I publish and they repost it there, just because I don't like that doesn't mean I've been docked.

But if somebody is taking personal information and using it to impact you in offline ways to influence your career or your sense of safety or any number of other things, that to me is what makes doxing doxing.

Is that accurate in your mind, or am I splitting hairs?

I. I think that's I think that's accurate.

Your information is out there, right?

One of the earliest and most common things we always say in the show is, you know, be careful what you post right live at what's out lied limit what's available, and that can be incredibly difficult when we start talking about data brokers.

Um, because, you know, the data brokers are collecting all this data from the targets and from the retailers and from your bills and from everything else and collecting it effectively.

Data brokers are doxing you for people?

Um, unfortunately, I, I don't think they would like that way of me explaining it. But effectively, they are creating documents on you and then making those documents available for resale. And I think there's something like 2 3000 available, uh, data brokers out there right now.

And, of course, you can get on sites like delete me and remove yourself from a few 100 of these data brokers. So there there are things you can do.

But yes, your information is is out there similar to what you're saying, I guess about cancel culture. Your your social media posts are out there. And you know, there's always good guidance around making sure that you have, you know, locked your counts down. Only share with your friends, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Uh, but certainly for people whose very livelihood depends on being very public, like some therapists, like maybe someone I know who who does need to put some content out there so people can find them to, you know, subscribe or to sign up or to, uh, do any number of different things. Buy books from, uh, you know, you. You You are balancing these.

These two urges, right to stay quiet, to stay private, to also be public. And to be promotional.

Yeah, That's part of why I've always been really clear about the fact that I am not a content creator. I am an individual contributor who happens to occasionally contribute stuff that is publicly available.

Um, and I know that that might seem like an arbitrary distinction, but I don't use my social media to, you know, intentionally create, like, edutainment videos or to do what a lot of my peers do and that I respect them for doing because it takes a lot of time and a lot of energy to be constantly generating new informational content for people.

But where I see people getting cancelled is often not in the professional things that they are doing with thoughtfulness and intentionality. It's those one off asides that, um, probably sounded funny in their head. But when you lose tone and intonation and relationship right when something is being seen by 50,000 people instead of by your five friends who might still go.

Wow, that was a shitty thing to say. You need to rein that in and check yourself.

Um, it lands differently. And I think that people are losing track of the fact that voices carry these days voices carry. I think that's a really good way to put it. The other thing that I wanted to ask you about this All right.

So let's say we all understand the voices carry and let's say that we're also thinking, you know what?

Like I'm gonna be careful what I say, I'm not. Maybe I'm not gonna make some jokes, I would normally say, or like some things I might normally like. Here's a question I have for you if Internet vigilantism, which I would in this conversation say, is the doxing and the cancel culture if Internet vigilantism again, both of these aimed at everyday people, not the powerful.

If this has a chilling effect on our speech and our behaviour, does that mean, in fact, that it's a one, though?

So I'm super conflicted because on one hand there are absolutely forms of speech and ideas that I strongly disagree with. And I would prefer to not be platformed right like I can I I We all including myself, have the private list of people that we just wish would shut up. And sometimes those people are really harmful, like individually. Collectively, they are doing harm.

And so one of the things that I wrestle with is how do we balance that?

How do we protect this idea of?

You know, the best remedy for for bad speech is more speech versus this idea that maybe the people that are bad speakers just need to stop. And I think that socially, we're in this sort of time of of change where historically maybe we would have been more in the line of If I disagree with you, then it's my job to offer a counterpoint not to shut you down.

And now it seems like the idea has become. If I disagree with you, it's my moral obligation to shut you down, and I don't know where that line is, because there are things that are just reprehensible and should be shut down.

But also who gets to be the arbiter of that who gets to be the one whose moral standard wins the day Because I know what I wish I could hear and see less of.

But is my opinion the one that matters?

I am I the one that ultimately gets to decide, and if so, how?

Um, there isn't really one good answer. And I think that this is something that a lot of you know, the couples that I work with have to navigate to this idea that it's not just my opinion that matters anymore. We have to be able to find nuance. We have to be able to hold space for our own discomfort, our own anger.

At times, it's OK to be angry at things that you find repugnant.

But where is our ability to impact that ethically and morally like?

And and and the old adage is my right to extend my fist ends at your nose, which makes a lot of sense when all communication was happening in newspapers and town squares.

But what does that look like online?

You know, how do we quantify harm?

How do we decide where my nose is when you're on another continent for me to begin with, and there's not really one good answer here. And it's one of those ethical things that I sit with along with my own frustration and distress tolerance on a daily basis.

Yeah, I. I don't know that we're going to have a good answer for that, but I do think, uh, reading your own social media with a critical eye or what some people are doing where they have someone else, you know, like a sort of like a council of friends who reads this social media and give some feedback is is a good idea.

This is one of the things that I came away from, uh, recently when I was at another event and I was at a privacy workshop and it was, uh, called self doxing or self cancelling where you you look at your messages and you try to read them with, like, the worst possible intent.

Or you look at some of your friends messages and try to read them with the worst possible intent, and you give feedback right so that people can start a more appropriately perhaps, you know, dialling in their humour. dialling in their message.

Uh, and you know, I. I think about that in terms of not going too far, because we don't wanna be stifled. And you don't want to have a chilling effect.

But also just having a a good sort of self awareness about how you're coming across in online spaces when you pair that with some of the privacy aspects, cleaning up your data, giving off data brokers, not exposing things that you shouldn't have and some of the security aspects having good account maintenance and security and all those sort of things you know, I think we can have a path towards reducing the likelihood of someone getting doxed or cancelled for me.

I think this is where kindness just becomes a good rule of thumb, right?

You're never going to agree with everybody. Not everybody is going to like you. I was having a conversation earlier today where I used one of my favourite therapy lines, which is one of the best things about being an adult is that we're not obligated to give everybody a valentine, and that's cool.

It is OK if somebody doesn't want to give you a valentine, but if you are posting online and moving through the world with an effort to be kind by centering kindness.

This is, I'm going to say less likely, because when you're a kind person, you can disagree with somebody without wanting to destroy them. And when you're a kind person, you can see something that really upsets you and really rubs you the wrong way, but still hold space that maybe that wasn't the other person's intention and extend them a little bit of grace.

And when you're a kind person, you think a little bit more about what you're saying and posting, and you don't go for the low hanging, edgy humour because it might be easy and it might get a laugh. But it's not kind. And so you know, we're never going to fix this.

There are always going to be people who very strongly disagree with us and with each other, and that would feel that the world would be better if everybody agreed. And I include myself in that the world would be better if everybody thought the way I did. I'm sure of it, even though I'm married to somebody who disagrees with me frequently and I love and adore him.

Clearly, the solution here is for everybody to just think like me. Yes. No. But if I try to be kind, then I'm less likely to say and do things that expose me to being attacked. And I'm less likely to attack other people when I don't like what they say.

Did you notice the silence of me biting my tongue?

Oh, I was just watching the blood drip down your chin. Yeah.

No, you get that tongue hard.

Hopefully, people know I'm joking. I I'm I'm pretty OK, but I don't think everybody should be like me. The world would be a boring place.

Well, as as I want to say, kindness is one of the original security control. So I like that. Be kind. Be considerate and just be conscientious about what you're putting out there with that. I think we've come to the end.

Oh, what a lovely way to wrap up So often our episodes end up with, There's nothing you can do. And it's all terrifying. And this feels warm and fuzzy. Be kind. It won't solve everything. But kindness does help. Absolutely. With that. Thank you so much for tuning into securing sexuality. Your source of information you need to protect yourself and your relationships.

Securing sexuality is brought to you by the bound Together Foundation 501 C three Nonprofit From the bedroom to the cloud We're here to help you navigate safe sex in a digital age. Be sure to check out our website for links to more information about the topics we've discussed here today that's securing sexual.com.

You also find out information about our upcoming live events and join us again for more fascinating conversations about the intersection of sexuality and technology. Have a great week.

​

In recent years, the concept of ethical non-monogamy has gained significant attention and acceptance in society. Ethical non-monogamy refers to intimate relationships that involve multiple partners with the knowledge and consent of all parties involved. While the idea of non-monogamy is not new, the rise of the digital age has presented new challenges and opportunities for those navigating this lifestyle. Here we explore the various challenges faced by individuals practicing ethical non-monogamy in the digital age and discuss strategies to overcome them. 


The Challenges: 

1. Privacy and Boundaries: One of the primary challenges faced by individuals practicing ethical non-monogamy in the digital age is maintaining privacy and setting clear boundaries. With the proliferation of social media platforms and dating apps, it has become easier for others to access information about one's personal life. This can lead to potential breaches of privacy and unwanted attention from friends, family, or colleagues who may not understand or accept non-monogamous relationships. 

2. Communication: Effective communication is essential in any relationship, but it becomes even more crucial in non-monogamous dynamics. With multiple partners involved, expressing one's needs, desires, and boundaries becomes even more complex. The digital age, with its plethora of communication tools, can both help and hinder this process. While technology allows for constant communication, it can also lead to misunderstandings or misinterpretations due to the lack of non-verbal cues. 

3. Jealousy and Insecurity: Jealousy and insecurity are common emotions experienced in any relationship, and ethical non-monogamy is no exception. In the digital age, jealousy can be exacerbated by constant exposure to other people's lives through social media. Seeing one's partner interact with other partners online can trigger feelings of inadequacy or fear of being replaced. Managing these emotions requires open and honest communication and a deep understanding of oneself and the dynamics of non-monogamy. 

4. Navigating Online Platforms: The digital age has revolutionized dating and connecting with potential partners. However, finding like-minded individuals who are open to ethical non-monogamous relationships can still be a challenge. Navigating online platforms and dating apps requires careful consideration of how to present oneself and communicate intentions without coming across as disingenuous or predatory. Building trust and establishing compatibility within the digital realm can be a daunting task. 


Strategies for Navigating Ethical Non-Monogamy: 

1. Establish Clear Boundaries: Setting clear boundaries within non-monogamous relationships is crucial for maintaining a healthy dynamic. Discussing privacy settings on social media platforms, determining what information is shared publicly, and establishing guidelines for communication with other partners can help maintain privacy and prevent misunderstandings. 

2. Prioritize Communication: Effective communication is the cornerstone of any successful relationship, and it becomes even more vital in non-monogamous dynamics. Regular check-ins, sharing feelings openly, and practicing active listening can help address any concerns or insecurities that may arise. Utilizing various communication tools, such as video calls or voice messages, can also help bridge the gap caused by the lack of non-verbal cues in digital interactions. 

3. Cultivate Emotional Resilience: Building emotional resilience is essential when navigating ethical non-monogamy in the digital age. This involves developing a strong sense of self-worth, understanding one's own needs and desires, and being able to manage jealousy and insecurity constructively. Engaging in self-reflection, seeking support from trusted friends or therapists, and practicing self-care can help individuals cultivate emotional resilience. 

4. Utilize Supportive Online Communities: The internet has given rise to numerous online communities and forums dedicated to ethical non-monogamy. Joining these communities can provide a safe space to connect with like-minded individuals, seek advice, and share experiences. Engaging in discussions and learning from others who have navigated similar challenges can be invaluable in developing strategies for successful non-monogamous relationships. 



Ethical non-monogamy in the digital age poses unique challenges and opportunities for individuals navigating this lifestyle. Individuals can successfully navigate the complexities of ethical non-monogamy in the digital age by prioritizing privacy and boundaries, practicing effective communication, cultivating emotional resilience, and utilizing supportive online communities. While challenges may arise, with dedication and open-mindedness, ethical non-monogamy can lead to fulfilling and enriching relationships.



Key Concepts:

• Ethical non monogamy
• Open relationships
• Clinical sex psychologist
• Alternative relationships
• Non monogamous relationships
• Swinging
• Polyamory
• Kink
• Information security
• Consent apps​

Hello and welcome to securing sexuality. The podcast where we discuss the intersection of intimacy 

and information security. I'm Wolf Goerlich. 

He's a hacker and I'm Stefani Goerlich. 

She is a sex therapist, and together we're going to discuss what safe sex looks like in the digital age. Today I am super excited because we have both a friend of securing sexuality and also a really good friend of ours, Stephanie Sigler, joining us. Stephanie is an award-winning clinical sex psychologist, a sexuality coach, the founder of Evolve Your Intimacy, and a first-time author. Her new book, The Clinician's Guide to Ethical Non Monogamous Relationships. Working with clients with alternative lifestyles, comes out next month, July 31st, and she is here to tell us all about her work with the ENM community.

Stephanie, I am so excited. I have missed your face. 

I have missed you, too. Oh my gosh, Well, of course I've missed you as well. But Stephanie, it's been too long. The Stephanie’s have to stick together. It's nothing about you, baby. It's just – it's a Stephanie thing.

No, I mean, right off the bat. We got twice the sexologists twice the Stephanie and twice the snar heading my way. So this is fantastic.

Aren't you a lucky man?

I can't wait you You're just You're You're just in for a treat, I. I absolutely am. But you know, award winning.

What?

What?

What awards?

So I have been love I, I I've been grace blessed. I don't know. I don't know what you wanna call it, but I've been I've won educator of the year three times, um, for the A N Awards and then Educator of the Year website Three years. And then last year, I accidentally won influencer of the year.

I don't know how that happened, but social media influence of the year and so that happened. And now this year, I'm nominated for, um educator website and then social media again. I was floored. There's so many other people out there who have, like, great platforms. And I mean, I'm out there, but not like they are, But hey, I love it.

I'm It just must be because I'm such an electrifying person that you are ASN.

That was the one we were at last year, right?

In Vegas or the other year.

That's AVN is that?

No, no, the AVN awards are different than the ASN awards, but yeah, um did you You guys went to the AVN awards?

We did. And we ended up in a sweet party, with with a bunch of, you know, adult entertainers and porn stars and everything else. And my wife was being very wholesome and being very much herself.

And at some point in time, I thought to myself, You know, A) I am so out of my element and B) you know, if, like, someone's like, Hey, why is Wolf there like that Might raise questions. So I should preface this. I had had a couple of cocktails, I messaged my manager at the time I reached out to her and I'm like, so we are at AVN right now. Somehow we ended up in a sweet party with a whole bunch of stars. My wife see, it's really much more wholesome than it sounds. I know.

And like, 30 seconds later, my boss just messaged back, She's like, Yeah, I'm sure I know you, too. I'm sure it's much more awesome. Have a good time.

Well, and I get that because I travel to the exotica conventions and, um, usually I would be in the one in Miami. But I can't go to the one in Miami because Naughty in New Orleans is the same time as well. And I'll be teaching at Naughty. So I go to all the exotica.

And when I tell people I'm going to porn conventions, they're like what?

Like OK, it's much more wholesome than what you think. Like it's not what you think.

Yes, there's a bunch of beautiful, naked people walking around.

Um, but they have pasties, They have pasties, and they have crocs. That was what really threw me off when we were at a VN. I actually think we titled that episode. Crocs are not sexy because it was a weird number of adult performers in rubber shoes at that event. It was strange, but it was true. And and lots of people in like pyjamas by the time we got to some of it.

So just like chilling out comfortable.

But anyways, we are way off track, like what are what are you most excited about with this book?

This looks fantastic. I am very excited to provide a a blueprint for therapist coaches, sex coaches, anybody who works with other people who are in alternative relationships because nothing out there was nothing out there. We as therapists, have treatment plans for everything except sex. And so one of the reasons why I wanted to create this is because I have so many clients that I work with in ethical, non monogamy relationships.

E, ethical, non monogamous relationships.

I can talk and they tell me all the time, you know, we go to counsellors and the counsellors tell us what's our lifestyle that we need to change?

And if we weren't in the lifestyle, then our marriage would be fine. But it's not that we just can't communicate.

Or they went to therapists to try to talk to them about getting into the lifestyle, and they got talked out of it, and they told him, You know, all kinds of terrible things about the lifestyle, and it just really broke my heart, and but to me, I feel like it's a lack of knowledge, and so to be able to provide this and be able to provide a blueprint knowledge treatment plans.

Here's handouts. Here you go. Take it and it can be Plug and play into your practise and you can start hopefully helping those clients that want to try things a little bit differently than what some therapists are accustomed to.

So that is part of how you and I ended up friends, right?

Because everything you're describing is exactly what my kinky clients deal with. They go to the marriage counsellor because they're struggling with communication and conflict, and they're told, Well, that's because you're kinky or they go because they want to learn how to negotiate that dynamic for themselves. And they're told, Well, that's not healthy and you need to stop. So we work with, like, cousin communities.

And that's part of why I've always enjoyed knowing you and bouncing ideas off of you. Absolutely. And I mean, I get art. I will like to say that art ethical not not E and M community, my lifestyle community is what I call them. They're kinky as hell, too, and you know, we get a lot of the overlap, but you're right. If there's anything kinky about it.

They're always told that that is just unhealthy. You just like pain. You need to go to see some or something crazy like that. You you shouldn't like pain.

Ah, so four hour sweet and idiot Innocent. I almost said, idiot, that's not the right word.

Sweet and innocent listeners such as myself, Can you please give us, like, kind of a high level overview?

What is what is E and M when we say E and M and how is that the same or different than the lifestyle?

Is the lifestyle swinging?

Is that term out of date like give us a quick vocabulary lesson so that we can all catch up for the rest of our chat?

Absolutely. So ethical. Non monogamy is the umbrella. And then underneath hanging, I like to call you think of a baby mobile.

So we have ethical, non monogamous and we have the little strings that hang down from the baby mobile, right?

And so we have, like swinging. We have Polly.

We have, um kinky. We have nudist. They're kind of included in ethical non monogamy because they go to these type of thing, these type of, um, environments to be part of it. They may not participate, but they're really open to it. And so even the nudist kind of get lumped into that.

The lifestyle is anything that you want, I I My definition of it is the lifestyle is anything that's not heterosexual monogamous.

OK, that's a big umbrella with a lot of baby Mobile.

Dang, yeah, because you know my lifestyle. If if I would say I'm a swinger, quote unquote a swinger, my swinging lifestyle is going to be completely different than what my neighbours swinging lifestyle is going to be because of my dynamics are different than theirs. And people think that you have to do it one specific way or if you're you're not a swinger or you're not in the lifestyle.

You know you're not kinky if you don't do it this way or whatever, but there's so many different ways to look at something and to own it and make it yours, personalise it, and so the lifestyle can be whatever you want it to be. So when I think of terms like Swinging, I think of like the swinging seventies with like key parties and stuff like that and again I'm sweet and innocent.

And for our fellow sweet and innocent listeners, a key party back in the seventies would be a house party where everybody would throw their house keys in a fish bowl. And at the end of the night, a woman would pick a pair of keys, and that was who she was going home with. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Stop.

Um I thought a key party was like, When you're doing PK, I You're trying to teach people how to, like, exchange secure messages. You get together, you physically exchange public private key pairs.

No, I mean, unless you're naked when you do it.

I No, I've never been to a APK party where you're naked. So that's like the the the non nerdy kind of key party is where my head went. But I feel like we don't necessarily find our lifestyle people these days with a fish bowl full of car keys.

So how are lifestyle folks fighting each other these days?

We have websites We have dating websites like you could not believe we have so many really good platforms that we can use. We have dating websites we have dating apps now. So techno technology has really allowed us to open up before people would put ads in Craigslist or they went to resorts or they went to parties and it was really hard to connect.

And you didn't know who was really in the lifestyle unless they were in the grocery store with the upside down pineapple type thing. And they're like, Oh, well, maybe you are.

And so what's that?

The Internet came online, I guess, is the best way to say it. It exploded when it came. When it comes to us being able to communicate.

So, yeah, we have so many websites that allow us to communicate and they're dating websites for couples.

How do you when you're coaching somebody help them know which sites are best for them?

Which ones are safest, Which ones are gonna have the right sort of crowd for them?

How do you help them parse out amongst those options?

Well, I am on five of them, professionally and personally.

I mean, I have those accounts too, and so usually I, I tend to stick to those the ones that I am on because I know the INS and outs of them. I know they're safe. I know that.

You know, I can see what goes on. And so if you are part of my group or something and you have questions, you can reach me. There are some out there that are not secure, and so I try to stay away from those.

But when I'm asking the clients, OK, what are you into?

So there's one out there that's just for bisexual women.

And, you know, if you want to be with another woman, there's a dating website for that.

Now, does that mean that you and your husband can't be on there?

Absolutely not. The couples can be on there, but they're looking for it's called.

Can I say the names of them?

Sure.

OK, so the one is unicorn landing, So it's unicorn. They're unicorns looking for couples. And so couples are on there looking for unicorns, and so that one's more specific for that type of dynamic. If you're looking for there, if you're an older couple, usually I'll send you to one that's called SLS, because that's more of an older dynamic and older age, uh, an older dynamic shit.

I'm just gonna keep saying the word dynamic over and over and over, and then if you're younger, there's several different options. But usually the one I send them to is it is, um, S DC, and that one is more educationally based. So there's lots of really great educators on there.

There's It's really good for those just starting in the lifestyle because you can get your questions answered and you know they provide all of these fun classes. But also there's sexy people on there and you're dating as well. So you mentioned unicorns and unicorn landing, and that perked up my ears.

Because a lot of times in our world, um, and when I say our world, I mean the sex therapy world, not necessarily the lifestyle world, Um, unicorn is not considered a good thing. Unicorn hunting is a pejorative right. A lot of couples that are looking for the bisexual woman to join them are looked down on, um, or looked at with suspicion.

So how does that play into the the unicorn websites?

Or the the ways that people who are like a wholesome couple that really would love a triad dynamic or a one off experience.

How do they navigate that?

Um, sort of mixed messaging. It sounds like, Well, you have to be very secure with what you and your partner want.

You know what you and your partner want more than anybody else?

And so if you're coming into this, you've already had those tough conversations. And if you haven't, then you need to start that. You have to start there. Those tough conversations. You cannot bring a third into your relationship, whether it be a unicorn, a bull or whatever, unless you have a strong foundation, because it's going to un they every crack you ever could imagine in your relationship.

So that's the first part that I I make sure is It doesn't matter if if I I'm a unicorn right now because you know I'm single in the lifestyle.

So for me, if I being a unicorn is not a bad thing in in our world, in the lifestyle world, because I choose who I want and who I don't want, they choose who they want and who they don't want. It's all about consent, and it's all about communication.

So when people look down on the unicorns, usually it's because they've had an experience with someone who wasn't very ethical and what I mean by that they were trying to divide and conquer. Maybe they were trying to, you know, split the couple up and take one or the other. Or maybe they just didn't know what they were doing. Because a true unicorn is a gift to the couple.

So I am a gift. I am to enhance the relate the the primary relationship. If a unicorn is not enhancing your relationship, then they don't need to be part of it.

And so what?

I really want to kind of change that stigma is unicorns don't have to be negative. They can be a gift to the couple. So if a wholesome couple is looking for a gift, then they can get on unicorn landing and and read through the profiles kind of start chatting and see if they have a good fit with them. And if you don't feel like you have a good fit, don't do it.

So a minute ago, you had said that some of the sites were more secure than others, and as you're also talking about, like you know, people who may try to divide and conquer. I'm thinking about, um you know, some of the conversations we've had in this podcast before where one person is like, Oh, yeah, So the other partner read those private messages and that sparked jealousy or sparked relationship prompts.

Um, so I I I've got a couple questions that come to mind first is how do you know what sites are secure?

Like, how How are people in the this lifestyle or people who are pursuing this making those judgments?

I go by how long they've been around.

And also how have they ever had data breaches?

Have they ever had anything you know, their website stolen or, you know, has information been stolen?

But I say that because I also research it and make sure there are several websites that have had data breaches.

And, um, unfortunately, some very sexy pictures of a lot of millions of people were put out on the dark Web and leaked. But that's also kind of one of the things that you put yourself out there for. Even if you're on tinder and you're sending out nudes it through tinder, they can take them and share them and whatnot.

But so I guess the the more secure sites I know that one of them just started adding that we have to do math now. So before we can log in, we have to like three plus five equals what before they'll let you in. And sometimes the numbers are so large I can't.

I'm like, Hold on 1718, 1920 before I can even log in and I'm assuming that makes it safe. So W I have a question for you.

Does that make that safer?

I think there was a point in time where it made it safer. But these days in age, that is a really easy thing to to to crack. We're also seeing, like, cap shows used to actually work. And now you can just throw the picture to chat TPT and it'll solve it. I think all that's gonna do is keep out people like my lovely wife.

It's like Wait a minute, I got to do math.

Wow, you hate math, but I can do it at least at the capsule level. Absolutely.

Yeah, but you I, I could see you quitting a website over math. That's all I said. The minute they bring order of operations into a cap shop out. Mhm. Yeah. Please excuse My dear Sally is what I'd be saying all the time.

Um, the other question I have is how does the conversations work like, Is there is it Is it a group chat?

Is it individual chats?

Because I'm going back to against some these conversations that we've had in the show where people are very concerned about private messages and what can be shared and what can't. I always suggest that if you are going to get into this with your partner that you and your partner you have. Most people use WhatsApp because WhatsApp has been fairly secure. There's a lot of people and and one that's called telegraph.

They allow you to send the the nudie pictures back and forth. And it's it all started out. We were all on Facebook and got kicked off there, so they had to find somewhere else. And so WhatsApp was the place. And I tell all of my couples what you have to do is you go into a group message. You don't split off because once you start splitting off and having those private conversations.

That's when bad stuff happens. We have doubt. We have jealousy. We have opportunities to cheat.

Yes, you can cheat in an ethical, non monogamous relationship. And so I really think that as a whole, staying in a group and opening up that conversation.

So, II, I highly suggest that people stay. And if they're gonna have four, you know two couples having a four way chat because, yeah, you can break off and it does get it. It gets overwhelming Number one and number two. There's just too much room for doubt.

Is that Is it very common to jump to WhatsApp, though?

Because I've also know that, like, if you're on a dating site and they're like, Oh, this is great, Please join me on on WhatsApp. That can be a sign that it's a it's fraudulent or a scam.

I just know that a lot of people use WhatsApp on in in our community in our lifestyle because of just the ease of it, and they can easily put different people in the groups and then and then easily take them out.

Now on the website, do you have?

It's a couple websites, so you have access. You and your partner are on there together. And the chat. You have the chat and you can see the chat.

Of course, you know, because you log into the same account.

But yeah, there are something. There are some people who do. There's gonna be people who abuse all systems, though.

You know, there, if you wanna cheat and you wanna do bad things and you don't want to be ethical, you're gonna find a way around it. That's why when I say ethical non monogamy, we'll pull out every single crack you ever thought or even not even knew you had in your relationship. And that's why you have to work through it.

And I love that you guys are talking about this because, you know, I have couples that come, and that's one of my my main jams.

My, my bread and butter is helping couples navigate this so they come to me and it's literally a 10 step process.

I'm like, OK, so why do you wanna do this?

What are our rules, Boundaries and agreements. And you know, if they don't have those established, then we're not going to move forward. We're not going to progress in a healthy manner. So many people trip and fall right in.

You know, we've all heard that Oh, it just happened. I went to this club and oh, my gosh.

Here we are in an orgy, and you're just like, what?

No, no, Um, you can say no in those situations, but you have to have that foundation laid. And also God, I cannot say it enough That trust my my personal favourite variation on We just tripped and fell into ethical. No monogamy is one of us met somebody. Uh huh.

And that's how we realised we were insert adjective here poly open swinging And, you know, in my work with my couples, I tell them the same thing.

You do, right?

Like you cannot open your relationship to solve a problem. You have to be starting on a strong foundation and build from there. And I'm always very hesitant when I hear the we opened up for a person as opposed to. This was something we decided to do together.

And then we opened up because there's always there's always gonna be that partner that didn't really want it, but doesn't wanna lose their other partner, so they're just kind of going along with it, taking one for the team type thing. There's gonna be resentment. It builds. And then when they meet somebody, the secondary, you know, the partner who didn't really want it, then they meet somebody.

Well, nine times out of 10, the one who did want it gets Jed list of them having it because they want it to be just for them. So you're right. It has to be a joint effort. It's like having a baby.

So oh, we're We're arguing all the time. Our marriage is on the rocks. Let's have a baby.

Well, what in the hell is that ever fixed that brought a kid in the world that's gonna be part of AD divorced family within a matter of, you know, few years, hopefully. But it's it's not gonna fix anything. It's going to if nothing else, it will enhance. But it's not gonna fix. And it will destroy whether it's Children or play partners or life mates.

Adding more people does not fix a broken relationship. Not at all, not at all. It can't.

So while we're talking about things that can go wrong and and it's always a tricky thing, right?

Because when we work with a a minority community, um, a neurotic minority, a gender minority, anything.

We're very protective, right?

And it it can be hard to talk about where things can go sideways because we don't wanna add to stigma or add to fear. But we're talking about technology. We're talking about Signal and WhatsApp and, um, telegram and dating websites. And I have to wonder, as somebody that you know is connected to the court system at times are there times when the paper trail becomes weaponized.

Tell us, Tell us how you know we We talk a lot about how to protect our text messages from outsiders or photos from outsiders. But talk to us about how the threat can come from inside the relationship. At times I have this is not a couple that I work with.

Um, professionally, this is just somebody that I know in in the lifestyle currently going through a divorce, and one partner has pulled out every single text message, uh, email all the pictures, all the stuff from the website and presented it to the jury trying to take the kids away from the other one, and it happens all the time. One will come around and say, Oh, I didn't want to do this.

I was forced into it and look what they made me do. And usually it's more. One is the more dominant partner, the one who talks all the time or talks to the the other people. Let's face it, I don't have time to sit and chat.

So when I had a partner, my partner talked to everybody and it made it look like he was the more dominant one, right?

Well, I was part of it, but I just didn't have time to talk to everybody. And so some people use that and weaponize it like, Oh, look, they're the ones that's talking and they're the ones that's instigating and pushing it. I just went because they were gonna leave me if I didn't and they switched that narrative and they weaponize that narrative and try to take houses. Kids money went all along.

They've been part of it, so it's It can be weaponized in so many different ways.

So again we go back to do you have a strong foundation?

Do you have the are you in the place in your relationship where it can handle something if it were to go wrong?

Because it's if you if you think that you're gonna go into the lifestyle alternative sort of relationships and nothing's gonna go wrong, that's a That's a lie. Something's going to happen. It always does. And you have a way. You have to remember you agreed to do this together. You agreed that we wanted to do this for whatever reason.

And now if something bad happens, we have to agree to fix it in a healthy manner. We can't weaponize it. And there's so many people out there who don't have that mature emotional mentality to be able to use it, to talk through it and to communicate, they use it to weaponize.

So, wolf, I have a question for you. I am still back on. Key Party is not being about encryption, but go ahead.

We have talked about like consent apps, right?

Where if somebody is gonna have a one night stand, there's an app they can open up where somebody has to opt in.

Yes, I am volunteering to have this one night stand. Are there any tech solutions for these sorts of situations.

Are there any way for somebody who's having what they thought was mutual and private, weaponized against them to look at?

Is there any sort of digital paper trail that can say No, really?

This was mutual or No, really, this was something they opted into.

Um, sure.

I mean, yes, there are consent apps and I think about, like, consent I and others that we've we've looked into. But I One of the things that I think the technology breaks down, including consent apps and and Stephanie, you'll have to let me know if you agree to.

This is almost all of them have a monogamous mindset, right?

It's it's predicated around two people.

So what does that mean?

Like I do. I consent with my partner, and then my partner consents with the other person.

I mean, how how many different times you have to consent?

How would that play out?

I don't know that the technology is really built with this, uh, non monogamy, uh, relationship model that we're talking about. I have my couples before events, or even when we first start.

Hell, it could be if you're just gonna go on a date with somebody. I have them complete relationship contracts.

You know, this is what we're doing. This is what we agree to. This is what you know, and they sign it and they date it, and I don't get it, but they have it.

Right?

That is a physical document saying no, this is what we agreed to. I signed it. You signed it.

Now, you know, I don't know In the court system, does that hold up?

I it's never been tested, Uh, and from my point of view, from with my group, that has filled them out.

But to me, it seems like, you know, if you have that contract and we know what we're going to do when we know hey, and every party we went to, we've had this and we've talked about what we wanted to do and what we didn't want to do. And if that was presented, that seems like it's a good defence to me. I don't know, Stephanie.

What do you think?

I mean, on the surface, it sounds great.

I, I think you know, coming out of domestic violence, sexual assault, there's always going to be the the concern about coercion.

Um, and you're never really going to get around that there's no perfect solution to somebody saying, But in the moment I I didn't want to, and I didn't say I didn't want to, um, but thinking about relationship contracts, it would be kind of cool if those were a part of the website, because I know one of the things that I've had come up in some of my sessions with people Is somebody saying, Well, the person that I was talking to, the more vocal person said that their spouse was totally cool with XY and Z.

But then in the moment I found out afterwards, they really weren't.

And it would kind of be cool if, as a part of those profiles, as people were talking to each other and kind of negotiating or flirting or whatever they're doing that they could see, um, what the partners had agreed to, like, sort of, you know, I and is what I'm being told, what they've actually agreed to, or I mean I, I don't know.

I don't know if the relationship contract could be a part of the app in some way or the site in some way, but it would be kind of cool if it was.

But also my question is, Is both partners really there doing it or is it one partner doing it for both of them?

How can we prove that?

It's tricky, It's tricky. And then there are people out there who will make up fake relationships and get on these profiles.

I mean, get on these websites and start fishing and then, you know, get into situations where they can do more harm than good, and it sometimes it can be physical harm. Sometimes it can be emotional, but that's where you have to have some. And I hate to be like this, but you have to have some sense, man, you know, you can't just go in there, ha have some common sense.

And unfortunately, common sense is not common. And I know that. So hopefully there our steps put in measures put into place to keep people safe. And I know that the websites really try our dating websites really try and they make it to where you know, you fill out these profiles and then even in the profiles you talk about for for this event. This is what I wanna do.

So they sort of have a a relationship contract type thing in there. But it's more for this is what we kind of want. This is what we were open to, and it's not specific, like we are not doing this or we are doing that type. So we talked about websites for finding each other. We talked about tools for chatting and having conversations. We've talked about tools for, uh, you know, consent.

And of course, there's some weaknesses in each one of those I I like what you say about. We gotta have some common sense. It's almost always like the real security is not all the tech we built around it. The real security is common sense. But the the other thing that I hear is that the real challenge in polyamory is calendaring.

Is that right?

And B, what do you do there?

Ok, I'm gonna I'm showing you guys and what I'm showing them is my date book. So this is this is the book that it's a it's a physical planner. There are 24 hours in a day. That's it. 24 you have work calendar. You have a dating calendar. I personally have four different platforms that I work through. So I have four different calendars and they don't talk to each other.

And again, there's only 24 hours in a day. So being able to manage that time is next to impossible sometimes unless you're highly organised. And so I have if you're going to be in a polycule, so to speak. So I have a polycule. I have several poly cures, but one in particular that I'm thinking of, Um, these are these are friends of mine. These are not people I work with.

I'm not talking about anybody I work with. These are just friends, but one polycule in particular. They have a shared Google calendar, and they put all of their stuff on it. And so when a new partner comes in, they get introduced to the Google calendar and everybody works off of that.

But even then, there's still flaws in the Google calendar because what if somebody forgets something?

You have to be dedicated to be in a poly relationship or to be a swinger or to be in any sort of lifestyle where you're gonna be dating other people because it does. We have lives. We work. We have Children And trying to manage all of those schedules.

Oh, my gosh. It's just overwhelming. I feel like if I was ever to go down that route, um, a There'd be a lot of conversations with with my Stephanie, Stephanie, but BI I think we would need an executive assistant like we We would need an admin at that point in time just to help navigate all that. That's a great I. I should. There goes my next business executive assistance for swingers.

Virtual virtual executive assistance for swingers. Perfect. Manage your dates.

You know, in in the in the corporate world, we talk about on boarding and off, boarding through identity nexus management. And I know I always bring make really sexy stuff really boring by going.

Let me introduce the new standard on that, but no, What I wanna know is like when a relationship ends, does that mean you gotta, like, remove it?

Remember all the calendars that they're on and remove them, because I imagine you wouldn't want them to see that tomorrow.

Well, it depends on now. Here's the thing. So I'm gonna use our trio as an example.

So let's say that wolf, you and I have a relationship, right?

And me and Stephanie have a relationship, and then we have the three. We have the the thropple.

Right?

So let's say that me and Stephanie broke up, but me and Wolf stayed together. So now we're all on the same calendar. But me and Stephanie just decided that we weren't working sexually. We're just gonna be great friends. But you know, we're not dating and we don't need our access to all that.

But are you gonna remove her from the Cal or remove me from the calendar or whatnot from Wolf's calendar?

So it's It's one of those if you have a a very huge poly polycule poly relationship. You have sometimes up to 15 to 20 people that you're you're navigating and working through. So you they may break up with you, but they didn't break up with these other people. So again there comes the trust. There comes the conversation and the communication and honestly, people in the lifestyle.

Whatever lifestyle is has have as such elevate I this is I don't even we are such great communicators because we have to be. You have to do it when it comes to planning when it comes to negotiations, when it comes to consent, and so by nature we tend to be a little bit more communicative in in different areas.

And so there's also that little level of maturity that some people don't realise just kind of comes with the territory of being in multiple relationships. At one time. I was interviewed by Nazanin Mo Ali a couple years ago because our world is, you know, are are the technology, then is almost a circle. We take turns talking to each other.

And that was one of the things I said at the time was that I think the biggest takeaway that that vanilla or or monogamous heterosexual people could learn from the alt sex community was not like rope tying knot skills or any, like how to talk dirty. It's like literally how to talk at all, how to communicate clearly, how to seek clarification when you're not sure you're on the same page.

Like the minutia of the conversations that happen before anything sexy or playful or fun can occur Absolutely. And so you know, and I Did I get this a lot.

How do we How do you know that someone's clean?

Ok, ST I STD whatever you know There.

How do you know if they're clean?

Well, number one, you ask for the results there, and that's a huge thing.

They're like, Well, you want me to ask?

Well, yeah, Why wouldn't you?

I mean, I can pull up my shameless care app right here, and I can show you my results. I get them sent to my house and then I have a portal.

You wanna see my results?

Here they are.

But that that open communication and so teaching people how to do that Because they're like, Well, aren't they gonna get offended?

Well, no, they probably wanna know, too, if you have something or if you're clean. And so that communication has been very eye opening to help couples work through because they're like, I just don't wanna talk about it.

Well, hey, you know, you walk up to a couple you're talking to, you decide that it's gonna go that direction.

It's OK to say, Hey, you know what?

I just wanna be really upfront and honest. I my partner and I get tested every 3 to 6 months. Our last test was such and such. Here's our results.

Do you have yours that we can see just so we can make sure we're all on the up and up?

Even that little bit of communication can cause so many walls to fall and so many opportunities to talk about all other things. It's It's amazing to me that we will put other people's genitals in our mouths, but we won't talk to them about it.

Uh, very true.

Very, very true.

Uh, when I have a couple that wants to learn how to be more seductive, how to be more flirty, how to talk dirty, I usually start by telling them, just narrate what's already happening.

Yeah, because you're doing it. You just don't know how to say it. But you made me curious because you mentioned an app. Shameless health, shameless care, seamless care.

OK, so that you know, I feel like I know most things in our world. I try to stay abreast, but I have not heard of this.

What is this?

Tell me more. Yes. Shameless care is an at home ST testing um, programme so they send it to your house. And what I love about shameless care is if I were to go to my doctor and say, Hey, I need a full panel. They're gonna give me a A. I DS test HSV the the herpes.

Maybe, you know, simple, um, syphilis. They're gonna do just, you know, the full panel. But the one thing they're not gonna do is they're not gonna swab your throat, and you can have gonorrhoea and chlamydia in your throat.

And so, with shameless care, they send all that to you. You swab your throat and you pick your prick your finger, and then you pee in a cup and send it all off, and then they take care of it, and it comes. The results come to my portal. They also have you like it's a subscription based. If you wanna do subscription based, you can have them sent.

If you're active in the swinging lifestyle active in any sort of sexual lifestyle, you can have it sent to you.

You know, every three months, every six months, whatever. So it's going to come to you, and then you just do it at home and send it off. There's no going anywhere. And I think that that probably was the most revolutionary website app.

Whatever we're gonna I mean, I don't know how to how to what to call it, but idea for alternative relationships because of it's embarrassing to go to your doctor and be like, Yeah, I slept with about 20 people in one day. We had this really great uh, orgy.

And so, yeah, I don't know who's giving me what, But you know, it's gonna get tested anyway.

And it's just, you know, one of those that your doctor is like, What?

Are you OK?

You know, they have all the shame and stigma associated with it. And then the reason why shameless care came about is because the founder, um, they're in the lifestyle, they're in their swingers. And what had happened was is all the several of his partners kept getting gonorrhoea, and he was being tested for gonorrhoea and didn't have it.

And he and they kept saying, Well, we're getting it from somewhere, and we're just, you know, it has to be from you come to find out, he finally got one doctor to swab his throat and he had gonorrhoea in his throat. That's not gonna show up anywhere else. Wow. So anytime he was giving oral, he was passing it along to everybody.

I am super comfortable talking about all sorts of kinky fuckery I When I'm doing media interviews, I say I will talk about any and every kind of sex. Except for one the kind that wolf and I have. I'm usually pretty open, but I will tell you, you said something that actually made me go like no hard limit.

What's that?

I'd have to prick my own finger.

Yes, not a needle person, not a needle person. No. When I get a blood draw, I get topical lidocaine a couple days to prepare myself one single Valium and wolf to hold my hand. Mhm.

Well, if you're going to be having relations with multiple people, you have to kind of get over some of that because number one you have to do blood tests.

I mean, that's gonna have to happen unless you're not being very clean, clean cleanliness, clean about it.

Hell, I don't know. I can't talk today, but be very clean about Hye. Hi. Thank you. Good Lord. I know I sound I mean, I am from Texas. Everybody knows that if you don't know it, you can tell from my voice. And sometimes at my my tongue, it sounds like cornbread and buttermilk when I talk and I really try to be so professional and not have that come out.

But when I'm talking to friends, it just comes out.

So yeah, it's you guys and so cornbread and buttermilk over here trying to talk. But we love corn bread. I know buttermilk.

All right, so here's a question. I have the the term ethical. So in in the hacker community, we have, like the ethical hacker, and, uh and that is something we've argued about.

Like, well, hacking is always ethical or oftentimes is ethical, right?

Why would you need to add ethical to it?

Doesn't it?

Doesn't that imply some judgement?

And so when I hear about ethical non monogamy, I'm like, Well, I mean, I would imagine like, Oh, not monogamy could be ethical. And so maybe it's because and you can correct me if I'm wrong here, obviously. But I suspect they both come from the nineties like, uh, ethical hacker came from hacking Expose, which I think was 1999.

I'm assuming ethical non monogamy goes back to the ethical slot, which was in 1997 in the late nineties. We were always like, Wait, this is ethical. We're OK. Gen. X was very good about that.

Uh, my question for you is does it matter that it's ethical, or is that shouldn't that just be implied?

Well, you can be in a non monogamous relationship and it not be ethical.

I mean, you could be cheating on your partner. Ethical non monogamy is again that umbrella term because there's one not negative or the negative connotation behind non monogamy to begin with, people think, Oh, well, you know, you're you're doing it just because you wanna cheat. It's just a a an ethical way to cheat, right or a good way to cheat.

No, it's not. What they don't understand is the amount of preparation that went into it, the amount of communication that went into it, the amount of pain and tears. And and I can't tell you how many times that I've had my feelings hurt over something so silly, but in the moment it just hurts so bad because of emotions.

And so making sure that the term ethical is in there really implies that everybody in that situation in that dynamic knows exactly what everyone is doing and why they're there. Which is the exact same thing that Wolf and I try to talk about when it comes to technology, too.

What are you doing?

Why are you doing it?

Who are you doing it with?

And what tools are you using when you do?

I am so so glad that you carved out time in your weekend to come and talk to us, partly because I haven't gotten to see you since our conference in October and partly because what you have written and what you do is so important and so needed. And I mean I. I blurbed your book.

I'll be the first one in line to say it's amazing, And I'm very grateful that people like you are out with me in the trenches on behalf of people that deal with such stigma and to make lives and relationships and dating and sex a little bit more safe alongside the fun. And I know that you are somebody that prioritises. Emotional safety, physical safety.

And since we've gotten to know each other, you know, like technology safety too. Absolutely. So thank you. So so much for joining us. I'm excited that you were able to be with us today. Thank you for having me.

I Well, you two know just how much I love you all so I could just go on for a whole day about that. If y'all don't know these two as they are just amazing humans. But I can't wait to see you guys. Hopefully we get together soon.

And I appreciate you letting me talk cause I could talk for hours about ethical non monogamy because, you know, hell, it's what I do for a living. But it's also what I live in my real every day to day life.

It's, uh, been a great conversation. We do. We need to find a city. We need to find an event. We need to find a time and place so we can hang out again. Until then, thank you. And to the listener. Thank you so much for tuning in to securing sexuality. Your source of information.

You need to protect yourself and your relationships securing sexuality is brought to you by the bound Together Foundation A 501 C three nonprofit From the bedroom to the cloud. We're here to help you navigate what safe sex looks like in a digital age. Sure to check out our website securing sexual.com for links to all the topics we discussed here today.

The book, the website, the awards, um, key part is my definition. I'm gonna sneak that in and everything else as well as our upcoming live events. And don't forget we are in a micro grant funding cycle for gender and identity affirming micro grants.

Uh, we still have space for more people to apply. So if this is something that would benefit you or someone, you know, hit up the website for the link to the application and then join us again for more fascinating conversations about the intersection of sexuality and technology, have a great week

​

​In today's digital age, technology has become integral to our lives, impacting various aspects, including our relationships. With the advent of social media platforms, messaging apps, and smartphones, maintaining privacy in intimate relationships has become increasingly complex. Let's delve into the impact of digital privacy on intimate relationships and explore strategies for navigating the intersection of technology and trust. 

Digital privacy refers to controlling and protecting personal information shared online. In the context of intimate relationships, it encompasses the boundaries individuals set regarding sharing personal data, messages, and online activities with their partners. As technology advances, so does the need to establish clear boundaries and expectations regarding digital privacy. 

Social media platforms allow individuals to share their lives with others, often blurring the line between public and private information. Maintaining digital privacy becomes challenging when partners have different preferences for sharing personal information online. Messaging apps have revolutionized communication, but they also raise privacy concerns. The ability to access conversations, read messages, or even monitor online activities can create trust issues between partners. Location-sharing features, while convenient, can also pose challenges to digital privacy. Partners may feel uncomfortable with constant monitoring or the potential for abuse of location data. 

Digital privacy is crucial in building and maintaining trust in intimate relationships. When partners feel their privacy is compromised, it can lead to feelings of betrayal, insecurity, and mistrust. Digital privacy also affects communication in intimate relationships. Partners may hesitate to express their feelings or engage in open discussions due to fear of judgment or privacy breaches. Digital privacy, or the lack thereof, can fuel jealousy and insecurity. Constant monitoring of online activities, messages, or social media interactions can create doubts and misunderstandings, potentially damaging the relationship. 

Open and honest communication is essential to set boundaries regarding digital privacy. Partners should discuss their preferences and expectations, including what is acceptable to share online and what should remain private. Consent is paramount in maintaining digital privacy. Partners must seek permission before accessing each other's devices, messages, or online accounts. Respect for boundaries builds trust and a sense of security. Frequent discussions about digital privacy help address concerns or insecurities. Regularly check in with each other to ensure both partners feel respected and their privacy is maintained. Partners should strive for transparency regarding online activities that may affect the relationship. Being open about friendships, interactions, or potential conflicts can alleviate doubts and foster trust. And, if digital privacy issues persist or significantly impact the relationship, seeking professional help from therapists or relationship counselors can provide guidance and support. 

Digital privacy has become a critical aspect of intimate relationships in the digital age. Navigating the intersection of technology and trust requires open communication, mutual consent, and the establishment of clear boundaries. By prioritizing digital privacy and actively addressing concerns, couples can maintain trust, strengthen relationships, and embrace technology without compromising privacy.

​Hello and welcome to securing sexuality. The podcast where we discuss the intersection of intimacy and information security. I'm Wolf Goerlich. He's a hacker. And I'm Stefani Goerlich. She is a sex therapist. And together, we're going to discuss what safe sex looks like in a digital age. And sometimes safe sex involves others.

Well, I mean, you know, solo play has a place, and I would never insult it.

But, you know, sometimes I would argue the best sex involves a well, I mean, and sometimes you pay for it, I guess is maybe a better term.

OK, so there are nuances and who those others might be, I think is is is what We're what we're getting to. That reminds me of a story I heard about this week.

What's that?

Uh, did you hear that Apple is being sued?

Well, yes, again and again and again.

But what for?

This time, you know, you're right. Every every probably month or so, I get one of those Internet polls from the the data people.

And I get a lot of them asking, like, should Google be broken up?

Should meta be broken up?

How do you feel about Apple these days? So when I hear that Apple is getting sued, I think one of those big like, antitrust things and this does involve trust.

Um, a guy in the UK made news because he is suing Apple because he cheated on his wife.

Well, I mean, iPhones and iPads will have will make you do that. I've been told, um, in this case, you're you're not far off. He was using his iPhone to connect with sex workers.

Oh, dear.

And, um would delete those conversations afterwards. But it turns out that I know you as a cybersecurity expert, will be shocked to hear Just because you delete something doesn't mean it's gone. And his wife found all of those messages on a different I device.

Oh, going back years and left him.

Oh, and he is making the argument. Not that he should have negotiated an open relationship with his wife.

That was, you know, transparent and consensual. Not that maybe he could have chosen to keep his pants on, but rather that he is divorced because Apple was confusing in how they explained their deletion policies and what gets deleted, how and where.

OK, All right.

So, um, yeah, that's a thing. And I'm curious.

Oh, like, I have so many questions, but I guess the first is, like, I have an iPhone, and I use iCloud and iMessage and all the I things. I I'm a big fan of the ice.

But how does it all work?

How How do these things connect?

I love the fact that I can copy something on my phone and paste it on my Mac.

Also, that's a little creepy.

Oh, that was That was like, my favourite feature. I was so excited when I learned I could copy from my Mac to my phone or from my phone to my Mac.

Uh, and sometimes I'm on my Windows computer, and I.

I get really frustrated because I forget, and I keep copying and stopping pasting. I'm like, what is going on?

But I digress that that still feels like magic to me, though it really that one still feels like magic to me.

All right, so we know that iMessages are private. Ostensibly, one of the things I think is intriguing about Apple as a company is their model is not ads, and their model is not data aggregation.

So, like, um, other companies like the Googles of the world, you know, they are very much around.

Hey, you're on an Android.

How much data can I collect?

How can I use that to give you better ads and you know, better experience, and we can argue the pros and cons of that.

But Apple, that's not their model, right?

Their model is a premium device at a premium price, uh, with good protections. And historically, Apple has been the more secure choice has been the more private choice.

Um, as Apple's been rolling out, you know, all sorts of features, including the new A. I I've usually been been OK. I've been on the same page as them, but you bring up an interesting point, which is the If you have iCloud enabled your iCloud, your your device will sync to your iCloud, and your iCloud will sync to your device. And if you have multiple devices, that means yes, absolutely.

Every device that is connected to your iCloud will have a copy of your text messages. If you've allowed those messages to come down, and if you're connected to iCloud.

So yeah, absolutely. That is that is 100% accurate. Which begs the question. Whose fault was this?

Well, I don't I don't know. He Here's the thing. Here's the thing. I'm I You are the one who would have to tell me whose fault is it for someone who's been cheating, that's your role. But I will tell you this.

I do think that, uh, what's this guy's name?

You know, I don't actually know his actual name, but the nom de plume that the journalist gave him was Richard, which, if we're talking about non-consensual cheating, I think dick is a great name.

Oh, all right.

So, clearly, you have feelings about the psychological aspect of this from a technological aspect.

I, I I'm not excusing any behaviour, but I do agree that the way that information is presented to a user may not be clear, right, And we want to be as clear as possible so people can make good security and good good decisions because, uh, yeah, you You think you delete it, but it's not really deleted.

So what is deleted and and where does it go when it's deleted, cause I know sometimes I can delete like a word document, and it doesn't really mean it's gone. It's just moved to the trash bin on my laptop.

So what goes away, and where does it go?

Oh, this is a complicated question that seems like it should have a simple answer.

First off, yes. If you delete an iMessage, it goes into your trash. So if you really want to delete it off your device, you have to delete it from the main part.

And then you have to go into your trash and and delete it from your trash part one part two every time you back up to iCloud, Um, you have, uh, a point in time where if that message was either in the trash or had not been deleted yet, that message is going to be in your backups.

If it is also replicated to other devices, it will also be replicated to other devices because the delete doesn't necessarily sync across to everything.

In addition, just to make this more complicated, um, if you're backing up locally, this was This was a scenario I had to deal with a a few years back, Um, someone was backing up their phone locally, and someone else was using those local backups to read their text messages and and to to follow them and figure out what they're doing.

So if you back up locally, it may still be in that backup.

So what?

What you really wanna think about is every single point in time that you do a backup or create a copy. If that text message this has not been deleted has not been deleted from the trash, it's gonna be in that backup copy and will live and persist as long as that backup or copy lives and persists. So Dick was right. Nothing goes away. Everything is forever.

Well, I mean, those copies are forever, But eventually they get deleted and bundled and everything else so, yeah, eventually they'll be gone.

So if you're backing up, what if I'm not backing up, which I know brings up other issues?

But what if for one reason or another, security stupidity, any point between those two?

I'm not backing up.

If I delete something, is it gone?

Yes, because there's no no other copy.

OK, um I'm thinking about some of the folks that I used to work with when I worked in the domestic violence space. And I'm thinking about how this often would bite people who were significantly more ethical than Richard in the butt.

People that might be, you know, planning an exit strategy, plotting, Um uh, to leave an abusive relationship, discussing things like, um, needing a health care procedure or travelling out of state for something.

How does all of this impact people who are at risk of more than an ugly divorce?

Well, that's a really good question. Those messages are going to be around.

So I mean, if you have this gets back to that situation I was telling you about, there was a situation where I was tangentially involved in investigating where someone was spying on someone else based on their local backups of their phone.

And, uh, we know this happens, right?

This is this is almost akin to, uh, the the spyware or the, um, you know, the the, uh, key loggers and everything else we've talked about. If someone wants to spy on someone, they can spy on them through those backups, uh, or through those other devices, so absolutely, Yeah.

I mean, there there is certainly a a ramification there for people in abusive relationships.

So why haven't the tech companies created a fix for this shit?

Why isn't there a button that says when I delete something?

I still want it to be a backup somewhere versus when I hit Delete, No matter what device it's on, I want it gone from everywhere. I feel like if we can copy paste from my phone to my laptop, then Apple should be able to delete from my laptop to my phone. I think those buttons would probably be confusing, though.

I mean, there there are certainly options, right?

I mean, uh, if you really want all your data gone, you can file file a GDPR request, and ostensibly Apple will delete all your data. Whether or not those backups are still in their backups is another question. So that would be one thing that comes to mind so you can do a full purge if you wanted to.

Um, but you're right.

I mean, that there could be a easier dialogue button or the delete could just delete period. Which would I think most people would want it to work.

Yeah, I don't wanna have to do a GDPR request if I'm rapidly trying to exit a dangerous situation.

I want to I wanna have, like, the the big red button, right?

Like that. Just nukes the messages. Sure.

So why why is that not a thing?

I know I'm asking you to kind of, like project into the minds of the Apple design team.

But from your perspective, as somebody that thinks about design as somebody that thinks about the ways that things can go sideways or be, um, Curb cut into something even better Why?

This is not a thing yet.

Well, we don't want a big red button. I'd want a big red button I. I think everyone wants a big red button.

But again, for the the sake of this conversation, we we have backups. And this is where there are somewhat competing design concerns because on the one hand, I wanna delete all my messages. But on the other hand, I want all my messages across all my devices. On the one hand, I want to to be forgotten.

On the other hand, I want to buy a new phone, and I want all my settings and my messages to follow me in my contacts and my photos.

Um So there there are competing goals here, right?

And the goals of accessibility, the goals of portability.

Um, you know, those those goals are directly at odds with this goal of privacy vis a vis the big red button. So I suspect that's what it is.

But in the meantime, aren't these things supposed to be encrypted like, Why?

Why was this accessible at all?

Anyway, if you if we can't make it go away, why are why was it viewable?

Yeah, that's That's a great point, right?

One of Apple's big touting points is use iMessage. It's end to end encrypted sounds perfect. And I like that. I really do like the fact that iMessage and and encrypted um, I think I told you I did a workshop recently where we built a simulated cell network in AWS. And then I taught people how to steal text messages. You did.

And then I asked you to explain each individual word of that sentence first sentence to me, and I don't think I did a good job. I have learned AWS.

Yes, we're good. All my books come from.

OK, quick aside. And then I'm gonna jump back in the early days of cloud.

Um, one guy was I was at a meeting, and this guy, I think he was a CFO was bragging about how smart his team was because they buy books all the time and he knows because he gets the Amazon bill and we had to break it to him.

Buddy, your tech people are not buying books. They put a whole bunch of servers in the cloud.

He's like, What does that mean?

I thought Amazon was only for books.

I mean, to be fair, they say you can get everything on Amazon. I did not realise you could buy clouds, but as an eighties baby who loved the care bears, I am pleased that the clouds are now purchasable online.

Do you know?

I really wish there were care Bears in the cloud. I think that would make like a little like Grumpy Bear popped up. And I would be the security person, of course. And lion heart popped up. That would probably be your firewall or your front end load bouncers.

I mean, I really would. That would make it so much more.

All right, we are way off track.

No, but wait, I have a proposal.

Yes, your firewall is the care Bear stare. When somebody tries to get in all the little virtual care bears line up and their tummies light up and it keeps out the bad guys.

See, I'm telling you, this would make every conversation I had with you about the work. I do so much better.

I mean, if you could really, like, break down every programming language and or task that you do into a colourful bear with a symbol clear and distinct in the middle of it, it would really make our conversations much easier.

Yeah, Yeah, I get it. But regular text messages sent in clear text. Best way to message is and end encryption. Best end end encryption programme is what signal signal. Shout out to our friends at signal. Not our sponsors, just our just our friends. We need to get sponsors one of these days anyways, so iMessage apple again is is privacy focused, privacy centric and iMessage does do end to end encryption.

Which means Apple cannot read your message. If I text you right now and you text me, Apple cannot read that, uh, nor can the cell network. Nor can the government. Which is why a lot of people complained, um, in the government side, because obviously that could allow terrorists and all sorts of stuff.

However, that is not how this gets leaked. This gets leaked when it is an iCloud and replicated down to people's devices or backed up. It's the backup side of things that, uh is being compromised here, not the end to end.

Does it count as compromise?

If it's his device, like right?

The thing that that really bothers me about this or maybe doesn't bother me, it's the least surprising part about this is that it's not like his wife was using a keylogger because she had suspicions. He was on his phone. She used the family laptop and everything was right there. So we're talking about encryption.

We're talking about protection, but does it even really count as breaking in?

If it's just one of the other machines in your house?

Not really. And that you know, ideally, if you wanted your information to be private, you would not be sending it to a laptop like I don't send any of my text messages to my laptop. It stays on my phone. When you ask me to pick up some food on the way home, that never never leaves my phone, baby, it's safe.

Meanwhile, when Cinnabon cancels my doordash order, I get notified everywhere that I will not be having delicious sugar.

Goodness, I'm so sorry.

But there there is also additional things we can do, right?

So in those iCloud backups, if you're brave, you can enable advanced data protection.

And what advanced data protection does Is it encrypts your backup?

Only you have the key. So Apple stores the file Apple still protects. The file still makes the file available, but Apple cannot read it. Law enforcement cannot read it. No one can read it, um, without the key. So it's advanced data protection.

Now why say, if you're brave?

Because if you get that key, if you don't have the key, there's no helping you. There's no getting it back. There's no getting into it, because if you get into it, it won't be protected.

So within, within Apple settings, there is an advanced data protection option that could be used.

Uh, or, of course, you could just disable iCloud backups. All the other.

Is there a reason not to disable iCloud backups like, is there a good reason to keep on the automation?

Yeah, I mean, so again, this is This is these are trade ups.

What happens if you're travelling and you lose your phone or your phone gets stolen?

Um, Or what happens if one day your phone doesn't turn on which has happened to you before, right?

Your your I. I don't know if it was this iPhone, but your last iPhone or two iPhones ago, it it won't hold a charge, and they couldn't get it to turn on.

You remember that?

Yeah. It decided that it aspired to be a brick. Isn't that like the the the cell phone equivalent of we invite you to add value elsewhere. We invite you to add value as a break. You are now building material.

So the, um, in that scenario, if you didn't have a cloud backup or local backup again was there is local options. If you didn't have either of those two options, there would have been no way to recover your photos, other text messages, your notes, your contacts, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and also within iCloud backup. You can also determine what you want to back up to. So there's that.

So coming back to you know, my vulnerable person, my person who needs to rapidly escape a situation.

Is there, like the opposite of an iCloud backup?

Is there a way to I know I can, like, reset my phone to factory settings, right?

Like maybe it's not aspiring to brick them quite yet, but we want it to be nice and shiny new.

Is there something I can do that would do that across all of my devices?

Yeah, you could, um, you could turn off iCloud backups. You could go in and and manage your cloud storage and apple and delete them all absolutely OK. And unlike Dick and his Tris deleting that would delete it across all devices. No. So whatever is already on those other devices already on those other devices, and here's something else I want to ask you about.

Let's suppose, let's suppose we had you know, Richard and Sally and and, well, Richard is always already the character here.

Uh, give me another character name.

Uh, Lucy, Lucy and Sally.

OK, two women. Seems a little bit more far fetched to me, but maybe not two women in that one's an abusive situation. So Lucy's abusive Sally wants to get away.

Run, Sally, run! Here's the thing.

Um, and by the way, I I am. I should I should probably preface this. I am a very playful person when I talk. If you are in one of these situations, please know I take it very seriously. I just tend to be very playful in my communication style.

So, please know, we do want everyone to be safe and hold in their relationships.

So Lucy and Sally, right?

Here's my question to you love. If Lucy has the iPad or a second iPhone And if Sally has the first iPhone and Lucy is monitoring the messages from Sally and Sally, turns them off, stops the the backups, whatever.

Isn't that going to be an indication?

Because if I don't know, um I, I don't even know how this works.

Would would an abuser check every day, every hour?

How does that work?

I mean, every situation is different But I have known most of the people I've known in this situation because abuse is ultimately about control. Their abusers tend to be very controlling, meaning they tend to check more often. There's a hyper vigilance. There's a heightened level of persistent scrutiny happening for sure.

So if they check in the morning and there's been only mess messages and then they check at lunch and they know they've seen the person texting, they know that there has been text messages, but there's no new messages.

Does that put the person in harm's way?

Yes, absolutely. It it certainly can, because it shows a difference in a pattern. So I would, I would think, if you were doing that and you knew someone was already following your messages. You should switch to a different communication platform, like Signal or WhatsApp for just a couple key messages to get out or whatever.

Um, instead of some messages go through.

Otherwise, I would think that might raise alarms different pattern. Like you say if and I don't know if this is a you question or me question. But along those same lines, though, if you know I'm in an abusive relationship if I'm a controlling partner. If I'm checking my partner's phone when they're asleep at night and I see a new app like signal, I mean, that's gonna raise some questions for me, too.

Yeah, Yeah, that's true. I really wish that iMessage had, like, a covert mode the way that signal does like a a way.

I mean, they have the, you know, you can set up albums. You can have a private album and stuff like that. They should have a way to have private conversations. I agree. Ah.

So what?

What are you thinking?

This is This is AAA crazy story. It happens all the time, which is part of why it perked my interest.

Because, uh, it it it feels like something people should know, right?

Like, you should know that your text messages are on your iPhone, which are on your iMac, which are on your I everything. Um but he didn't. And he's not only like, wow, I didn't expect that. And now I'm divorced. He's suing Apple for $5 million.

So what do we What do we think about this?

Ultimately, what are what are your thoughts?

Well, I think he's suing for £5 million but that that doesn't make it much better. Putting aside what caused this case, I do think tech companies need to be more transparent and more clear about what data is kept and what data is shared and what data is stored.

What could that look like?

One of one of his complaints was that the message he got when it said deleted wasn't clear to him.

It, you know, it says message deleted, and he felt like it should have said message deleted on this device.

Um what?

What would that transparency look like from your opinion?

Yeah, I think it would. Either. Message deleted from that device. That sounds fine.

Uh, alternatively, deleted across all devices like we were talking about.

Yeah, I. I feel like that should be the default.

I mean, if you're if you are already sinking the sinking, the sand, you should sink the delete. Totally agree. So that would be That would be one. And then I do think for for the rest of us who are listening into this, um, if you are using iMessage, be aware of this. It's being sent. Check your other devices.

Make sure you're OK with those other devices having those messages sent there?

Um, I might suggest disabling iCloud, uh, or if not enabling advanced data protection again, noting that if you disable it, you could risk losing data. If you enable advanced data protection, you better at never, ever, ever never forget the key.

And what do we think of what do we think of our our buddy Dick at the end of the day?

Is who Who is Apple?

The reason why he's divorced. That sounds like the type of question you would ask a sex therapist.

So I might say to you, Is apple the reason he was divorced?

You know, I'm gonna go with No, I think the reason why he I don't think I know the reason why he's divorced is because he stepped outside of his negotiated relationship agreements. Right. Like we we talk about this a lot, that that in my world, I'm never going to judge somebody for what they and their partner or partners choose to do.

I'm gonna judge them when they don't live up to those choices or where they, um, break those commitments. And so you know, II, I get that that our buddy Dick is looking for a reason to deflect responsibility. He he talked in the article about how painful the divorce is for Children.

And, yeah, that's absolutely true. But I don't necessarily know that it's Apple's fault that he got caught because if he hadn't have been doing it, it wouldn't have been there to catch him.

Yes, And so whether you're negotiating your relationship, contract with your partner or whether you're negotiating the privacy policies with your technology provider, always be aware of what you're committing. Always be aware of what you're sharing. Always be aware of where it's going.

Wait, I get to negotiate with my providers now. I thought I just had to scroll through a 700 page to S and click.

Yes, if I didn't want to break. I didn't say you had much power negotiating. I appreciate that. You're right, and we do need more power. We we need more choice. We need more informed choice in in all of this, and I'm always glad that you let me pick your brain about these crazy stories I find on the Internet. And I'm always glad to you. Friends who listen to us.

It blows my mind every time that you guys show up, week after week and listen to Wolf and I laugh and joke and, you know, flirt with each other sometimes and also occasionally talk about important security and sexuality information. And and you know we wouldn't do it if you weren't listening. So thank you for that. And thank you for tuning into securing sexuality.

Your source for the information you need to protect yourself and your relationships. Securing sexuality is brought together by the bound together Foundation of 501 C three nonprofit in the bedroom of the cloud. We're here to help you navigate safe sex in digital age.

Be sure to check out our website securing sexuality.com for links to more information about this story and other topics we've discussed here today, as well as our live events and our micro grant cycle, which is open right now.

Oh, yeah, definitely. Check that out and join us again here, right here for more fascinating conversations about the intersection of sexuality and technology. Have a great week

In today's digital age, cybersecurity has become an increasingly critical concern for individuals and organizations alike. With the rise of cyber threats and attacks, it is crucial to develop robust measures to protect sensitive data and ensure the integrity of online platforms. While technological advancements have certainly played a significant role in bolstering cybersecurity, the human element cannot be underestimated. Human empathy and support are essential components in the fight against cyber threats.

Cybersecurity is often associated with technological solutions, such as firewalls, antivirus software, and encryption algorithms. However, it is vital to recognize that humans are both the perpetrators and the victims of cyber threats. Cybercriminals exploit human vulnerabilities, such as curiosity, trust, and lack of awareness, to gain unauthorized access to systems and networks. On the other hand, individuals and organizations rely on human judgment and decision-making to implement effective cybersecurity measures. 

Kelley Masata, a renowned cybersecurity expert, has dedicated her career to understanding and addressing cyber threats. Through her personal experience, she has highlighted the significance of human empathy and support in the field of cybersecurity. Masata's journey in this field began when she fell victim to a devastating cyber attack that targeted her financial information. This incident stimulated her passion for cybersecurity and inspired her to make a difference by emphasizing the importance of human empathy and support. 

Empathy, the ability to understand and share another person's feelings, plays a crucial role in cybersecurity. By cultivating empathy, individuals can better understand the motivations and methods employed by cybercriminals, allowing them to develop more effective countermeasures. Moreover, empathy enables cybersecurity professionals to empathize with victims of cyber attacks, offering them the support and guidance they need in times of distress. Masata emphasizes that empathy is not only a valuable tool for preventing cyber threats but also for aiding those affected by them. 

Support is another essential aspect of cybersecurity that should not be overlooked. In a world where cyber threats are ever-evolving, individuals and organizations require a strong support system to navigate the complexities of cybersecurity. This support can come in various forms, including mentorship, training programs, and collaboration among industry professionals. Masata firmly believes that by fostering a supportive environment, cybersecurity professionals can consistently enhance their knowledge and stay on top of emerging threats. Additionally, providing support to cyber attack victims is crucial in helping them recover and regain their confidence in the digital realm. 

Education and awareness play fundamental roles in promoting human empathy and support in cybersecurity. By educating individuals about the potential risks and consequences of cyber threats, we can empower them to make informed decisions and adopt safer online practices. Moreover, raising awareness about the human element in cybersecurity encourages individuals to cultivate empathy and support within their personal and professional lives. Masata advocates for the integration of cybersecurity education in school curricula and workplace training programs to establish a proactive approach toward cybersecurity. 

The importance of human empathy and support in cybersecurity cannot be overstated. Kelley Masata's experience serves as a powerful reminder that cybersecurity is not solely a technological battle but also a human one. By fostering empathy, providing support, and promoting education and awareness, we can build a resilient cybersecurity ecosystem that safeguards individuals and organizations from ever-present cyber threats. It is imperative for cybersecurity professionals, industry leaders, and individuals alike to recognize and embrace the human element in cybersecurity to ensure a safer digital future.

​

Key Concepts:

• Cybersecurity for nonprofits
• Online harassment and stalking
• Cybersecurity preparedness
• Victim support and resources
• Responsible use of technology
• Impact of online behavior
• Nonprofit security needs
• Digital age challenges

Hello and welcome to Securing Sexuality. The podcast where we discuss the intersection of intimacy and information security. I'm Wolf Goerlich. He's a hacker and I'm Stefani Goerlich. She is a sex therapist. And together we're going to discuss what safe sex looks like in a digital age. And today we are joined by Kelley Masata. We have been super excited to talk to her. It has taken a little while for us to connect.

Shout out to Securing Sexuality advisory board member Ean Meyer for suggesting that we have her on the show.

And now that I am super pumped up and excited to talk to her wolf, who is she?

She is the founder and CEO of Sightline Security. Sightline Security, of course, is a nonprofit that helps other nonprofits sort out their security issues. Sounds vaguely like us. No wonder Ean wanted us to connect. Hello there.

I would love to start out just by hearing more about sightline security and what brought you to this work?

Tell us the story of how you got here.

Yeah, it's It's kind of a twisted tale.

Um, you know it, it's it's not at all where I expected my life to be, um, so not to go too far into the way back machine.

Uh, but I started in security, Uh, because I was a victim of cyberstalking.

Uh, I was working with someone.

Um, we were both in the high tech space, and, uh, he developed an infatuation.

Um, and that went on for the better part of seven years.

Uh, and you know, for most people, there's all sorts of ways that that folks deal with it.

They, you know, contact law enforcement, which I did.

They, you know, try and fight back in their own special ways.

Um, I went and got a PhD in cybersecurity. My stalker used Tor. And so I actually started by knocking on the door of the tor project and asking them for help.

Um, and when I came to learn more about tor, uh, and I, I went to the executive director, and I said, Hey, uh, I could use a job.

He's like, What do you do?

And I said, I have an MB a in marketing, I can do anything.

So I wrote one of their annual reports, started working for the tour project got introduced to open source at that time started PhD, um at Purdue University by meeting and really by chance, I was, uh, had the great fortune of meeting Doctor Eugene Stafford and Becky Base and both of them said, You need to go to Purdue and tell your story.

And I was like, Yeah, I, I don't really talk about it publicly. And I was still very much in the shadows, and, uh, they said Staff says, Oh, just come on over, Let's do it.

You know, do one of our our talks. And in that moment I was like, OK, well, this will be great. It'll just be with students and faculty and kind of easy. And then I realised while I got on campus that it was going to be broadcasted.

And I have to tell you guys, I've never been so afraid in my entire life because, you know, when you've been stopped, particularly through technology, you don't feel that there's any place to hide. And so I just, you know, I kind of mustered up the the courage I remember actually pacing in my room at the Union Hotel at Purdue.

Um, before the, uh the talk, and I was listening to Florence in the machine, and I was like, I'm just gonna like channel all that Florence energy and just kind of make it happen.

Um, And it And it turned out actually really great. And I was super proud of it. And when staff and I went and had dinner, he very eloquently said in his, you know, only staff way, you can remain a victim or I've got a better path.

Why don't you apply to be a PhD student?

And I'm like, he, uh I have an MB a in marketing.

How does that connect with cyber security?

So I went home and I applied thinking that was gonna be it wrote my essay on Amelia Earhart and the power and strength of Women.

And, uh, three months later, I get a text message from staff saying, Welcome to the programme.

I said, What do you mean?

He's like, you're gonna move to Indiana, right?

I'm like, No, I'm not.

I'm like, I'm a single mom in Boston, Massachusetts. I've got to stay here. So I ended up commuting back and forth, uh, between Purdue and Boston, uh, for my PhD and I was working full time at the tour project, raising my Children still grappling with some of the residuals of the stalking and all the fallout because he was so aggressive.

And it was, you know, it was sort of that mindset that at every single semester I was gonna get kicked out. So there was no fear. Like I'd start the semester. I would get all my courses. I would ask my classmates to Skype me and this is before Zoom. Ask my classmates to Skype me in, get the permission from the professors, explain the situation.

Everyone was super helpful, but they were also, you know, very strict. Everything was on me. I had to do the work and show up and not ask for any special favours. And and I did, um and I learned cyber security from the ground up in a PhD programme.

And, uh so I got to dissertation to kind of fast forward to a sight line. When I got to dissertation, I wanted to know, How could all of the organisations that I was reaching out to when I was at my most desperate, why were they so ill equipped to help me like they were using technology, but they didn't know how to help.

They kept thinking Oh, well, that's That's just something else that we can't help you with.

So, I, I stepped back and I thought Huh, I wonder if these organisations nonprofits understand how cybersecurity impacts their business and are they prepared for an attack?

And I was really thinking about the domestic violence shelters that were in my area, and I was seeking out just some guidance around how to handle the situation.

And, uh and so I ended up doing my dissertation, um, doing a gap analysis on the security preparedness of organisations working with victims of violence.

Now, mind you because I was late in my career when I proposed this dissertation I went to with my, uh, went to my committee and said, I'm going to look at the entire nonprofit sector and they talked you out of it, and they did.

Staff was like, um excuse me, Kelley, this is slide three of, like 30 for my proposal staff like, um, Kelley, get PhD first, then go save the world, not the reverse. So I picked those two lanes and it was astonishing to me, Uh, because I knew in my heart that this was going to be really valuable work.

But when you're faced with to finish this this journey of PhD, you have to do a body of research that changes. You know the field and advances things. And when your committee says nonprofits don't care about cybersecurity, nobody's gonna answer your survey. I hope you have a plan. B makes you step back and go.

Oh, shoot. I don't have a plan, B. I hope this works.

But I actually accepted the challenge and I said to staff, OK, how many responses do I need to give my survey?

And he said something like, 56 said, All right, I got 222 out of 500 and it was the moment that that happened that I realised I'm like, this is important for nonprofits. And so that was really the genesis of sightline, because when I finished, uh, the programme Becky Base came up to me after my defence and she said, You can't let this sit on the shelf. You've got to go do something with this work.

And so I formed Sightline with that you know encouragement and inspiration behind me to say, Let's help nonprofits figure out where they are against security. Best practises before we just start throwing free stuff over the fence to them saying, Oh, we've got this free firewall. Grab it. We've got these free, you know, passes for password managers. Grab those sightline helps him actually look at the business.

Figure out where they are against the cyber security framework, and then they know what free stuff to go look for and why it's important. So I know that was super long.

Sorry, guys, but it's a weird It's a weird kind of entry into the security space.

I mean, I'm here for it as somebody, that is, you know, a social worker and sex therapist that somehow also ended up take tech adjacent. Your story resonates. So So let me ask a different question.

What do you do like now that you've stumbled into this world?

Now that you you're doing what you're doing and you've created what you've created, what does that actually entail?

Day to day?

So day to day, I I'm wearing a few hats for sightline. We actually work with nonprofits of all missions, all sizes and we help them do what are called Kickstarts.

Basically, it's getting them started on a cybersecurity journey. It's a six week programme and it really is exciting because I get to actually get to know these organisations before we ever start talking about security.

Because one of the things I'm so cu curious about and that we sort of dive in together, is how does security preparedness shift by mission?

So an animal shelter has a very different set of security needs then, uh, a domestic violence shelter.

But in the cyber security space, we just give bi or the one size fits all model and I'm diving into How do we pull this together?

I also wear some hats in open source.

Um, I'm still involved with another foundation that helps, uh, build open source technology.

Uh, intrusion, detection and network, uh, security monitoring.

So I'm still sort of keeping my fingers in that space, but really, every day is waking up and going, huh?

How did I get here?

And what new, exciting thing is happening in the technology space that I can go figure out and discover and help translate that for nonprofits to make them safer, to make them more aware in many respects.

Um, because I think everyone that I've ever talked to particularly and my role at Sightline, everybody is worried about becoming a victim. Everybody is worried about that moment that something is going to snap or something is gonna kind of hit them blindside. And I'm always curious to ask them.

Tell me what that looks like for you, and let's figure out how we can help your business kind of survive what might be coming down the pike. I love that wolf.

What are you thinking about?

I'm thinking about when you were at a woman's domestic violence shelter with the panic buttons and everything that you went through. He wasn't a fan of me having a job with a panic button.

Well, yeah, the the panic buttons are are an interesting approach.

Uh, and it you know, it was very interesting to me because, uh, my stalker was really adept at using technology. He was very, very skilled at masking his identity. He was very skilled at social engineering, his way into the lives of many, many people. Some relationships in my life never repaired from the damage that he did.

And it was interesting to me that when I did go to the domestic violence shelters that they the only thing that they had for people who were coming to them for help was around physical danger. They had nothing that was ready for digital danger. They just kept saying, Well, if he shows up, we'll help you.

Which was exactly the same response that I got from the police department when I went to my local police.

I mean, I had a restraining order hearing and he showed up in my town 3000 miles away from where he lived to come to the restraining order hearing, and my local law enforcement wouldn't even do a drive by.

Do you think that we've gotten any better either in the law enforcement side or in the nonprofit side?

Obviously, with the organisations that you help, I'm assuming they've gotten better.

But do you think that that we've gotten any better as a broader cultural conversation around recognising, uh, online stalking, online surveillance and and being able to combat it?

Or do you do you think that there's still a lot of misconceptions and a lot of missed opportunities to help people. I think it was really Epping and flowing.

I, you know, back when this was sort of front and centre in my life was when cyber bullying was top of the news feeds.

Right?

Children were committing suicide due to bullying cyberbullying. And I remember giving one of my earliest talks. And I said to the audience, Um, there are many times that I wish that the 33 bus would have driven just a little bit faster when I was crossing the street.

Mhm, because it was that hard to manage. And at that time, when so much emphasis was on Children in cyber bullying adults, we were held to a different expectation that you can manage this. I had family members that said, Just stay off the Internet. Don't worry about it.

Why does it bother you?

He's not hurting you. You don't have any bruises to show. And I was like but it is real and it's is tough. So as time has gone on, you know, I think, from where we were with cyber bullying with Children and sort of more cases of cyber stalking and more data and more understanding around it.

Things have gotten better, but in some cases things haven't because the technology has advanced and the ease of people using it for their own malicious purposes. To anonymize your identity on the Internet is as easy as a YouTube video. It takes no technical skill whatsoever to do that.

So there is this comfort in this ease around technology that when something goes bad and someone just kind of snaps the technology is almost this willing facilitator to do whatever they want it to do without any recourse for the victim.

But again, on the flip side for the victim, there are more resources. So there's this this ebb and flow of good and bad across the space victims have more resources, but it's funny. I've I've kept myself pretty, pretty distant from kind of direct work with victims, because I've except for podcasts like this I, I don't try and sit in the headspace of this.

Yeah, when victims do reach out to me, they're talking about the same things I was talking about in 2009 and 2010, and I'm like, but why isn't it better?

And the laws. The laws were the biggest kind of holy cow.

You know, anyone who uses tor you you are immediately sort of in a pickle because Tor is going to bounce those messages. If you're being stalked through that channel around the world and the second you try to unpack that and you're dealing with international law, you're screwed.

So victims when I talk to them and they reach out to me, I try to help them sort of step into the space of what do you have control over?

You don't have control over someone else, which is a hard thing to wrap your head around, particularly if the attacker is faceless. You don't have control over that person. You just have control over your technical space and your safety. Let's try and figure that out instead of trying to, like, make Facebook do better, you know, make your Gmail account, not be infiltrated.

Make all these things work better because everybody wants to say, Oh, I'll go to Facebook. If I get harassed on Facebook, Facebook will protect me. I reported 75 accounts of abuse of my name and of harassment to Facebook, and I got zero responses back.

Really?

And in some ways, wolf.

You know, I don't even blame them.

I mean, I do.

Why?

Why would you say you don't even blame them?

Tell me more. I think I've come to sort of resign myself. The fact that the technology itself is Amoral even though it's built by humans and even though humans should be managing, it is almost an impossible task to do that. They can build safeguards and they can do some things, But we can't hold them fully accountable for all the actions of the bad guys.

When I was at the Tor Project, I remember I was director of communications when Edward Snowden had his big review.

Oh, yeah, And the journalists who would reach out to us to for comment would look up my background and I got called on the carpet for Wait a second. You are now working for the technology that was used as a weapon against you.

How does that work?

And I said, Oh, well, And in this particular case, it was, um, someone who was being arrested for, for drug, um, for drug dealing. And I was watching the local news during this interview as as I was chatting with this, um, journalist and I was watching the news, and I saw that this person got arrested in the city.

Um, and they took like the food was of his car where they arrested him.

And I said to the journalist, I said, Oh, I said, Have you contacted the Ford Corporation about this?

And they said, No, Why would we?

He's used tour.

I said, Yeah, but he also drove a Ford. Hm. These tools these technology, are things that we use to facilitate. They can always be used for good, and they can always be used for evil.

So would I love Facebook to come to my rescue?

Absolutely. But I resigned myself a long time ago that big companies and some of these big technology platforms will never come to the aid of victims. So this reminds me of something that happened years and years ago.

Uh, that I don't even know if Wolf knows happened.

I was 18, I think, in college for the first time, and I was being stalked and I was being harassed and I was getting threatening notes, and all sorts of things were happening and we went to.

I was living in the dorms at college and we went to the school and the school called the local police and the local police put my friends and I through several hours of writing the notes over and over and over again so that they could rule out the fact that I was doing it to myself. And after repeatedly writing my own death threats over and over, I started sobbing.

And I'm like, When are you going to help me?

And they said, Well, nothing's happened yet.

Yes, And I said, So I need to actually be hurt first. Something has to happen to me before you will help. And they said, Yeah, there There hasn't been a crime yet. Until something happens to you, there's nothing we can do. And I left feeling more victimized and more exposed and more scared than when I had walked in.

Uh, which might explain my complicated views as a, you know, a domestic violence sexual assault advocate on the police today. But also we've handed those same conversations and those same experiences over to dozens of companies now and that same experience can be replicated um with Facebook and Meta and Google and every other social media platform when you're being harassed online, Absolutely. The burden of proof is on the victim, always.

And to explain the technology to law enforcement was absolutely stunning. To me. I'm like I. I actually asked the officers who were taking my statement on my local police department.

I said, Um, do you guys have a Facebook page?

You know, personal Facebook page?

And they said yes.

And I said, Do you know about these privacy settings?

Because I had learned that the hard way.

And they're like, Oh, no, Can you show us?

I said, the the privacy saying, Oh, yeah, OK, and can we take my statement because I'm terrified?

You know, people.

I remember doing some talks with some high school students around cyber bullying and harassment, and I had one student say to me, You know, when will this be over for you?

Do you feel like you've gotten beyond it?

And I'm like, I don't know if it'll ever be over, because as long as a certain person is out in the wild, this will always sort of be in the back of my head because it's so easy to be able to come at someone in the most, you know, unexpected moments.

Like I used to say, carrying this was like carrying him in my pocket, and it was awful because you can't live life without technology. I tried. Trust me. I tried. I tried changing my name. I tried going off the Internet.

You know, I tried to repair all these relationships.

Um, the FBI took my case. I remember the day that the FBI called me and they said, and they were really They were really nice people. Um they said, you know, Kelley, I'm sorry he's using Tor. We don't have enough evidence. We can go do another knock, knock and talk.

I said, Oh yeah, that's a great way to twist someone's tail.

No, thank you.

And I said, OK, is that it?

And they said, Yeah, that's all we can do.

And I remember sitting on the floor of my bedroom and thinking, How is it possible that the highest level of law enforcement in our country says to someone with a binder full of evidence, We can't help you?

There's nothing we can do to protect you or your Children. That is the experience that so many of the survivors that I've worked with over the years have encountered. That's part of why Wolf and I do the podcast and do the work that we do Having had the personal experiences, the firsthand experiences, uh, yours, which which mirrors mine and like a You know, 20 years later, it's still happening.

But with improved technology, Um, what does your research show?

What are you finding when you dive dive into this?

What is the data on how this abuse is occurring and how protected or not people are?

Yeah, I think we are going into unchartered territories now.

You know, we now are going into the AI mode where a I can actually mirror people's languages, their tone of voice. So it's going to be even more difficult for my stalker.

I actually hired a forensic psychologist to take a look at the anonymous content and the pieces, the shreds of content that I had when he was using his name, because I kept saying, Can someone just tell me whether or not this person is gonna come kill me?

It's all I wanted to know are we talking?

Psychopath?

Sociopath. Big difference.

Um, but now that we have AI, we have all this advancing technology, Holy cow. We're gonna have to help guide victims and even new ways of managing this and dissecting for law enforcement and other support services to step in and say, you know, let's take another look at this. But the fear is always, always there. It's really, I mean, it's it is.

It's so hard to explain to someone who hasn't kind of gone through it. But it it's very much like you question whether or not you are misreading the signals. Like most of the time when he was active, it was like, Yeah, that's clear. That's him. I get it. And then stuff would happen sort of since then, and you're like, I have to check-in.

Is that that, or is that just random or is that something else?

And that is where it takes up a lot of bandwidth in your heart and in your mind when you're stepping in and having to kind of analyze those pieces. And I think that's gonna get trickier for victims as we go down the road.

Yeah, because There's so many different ways to, you know, spread a pattern out, right?

Like if you think about tour as a way of obfuscating where network traffic comes from, you know, the generative A I where you can write things and craft messages are a way of, you know, abstracting and hiding where the content is coming from.

Yeah, I ran a test with, uh, one of our members at Sightline who's a domestic violence organisation. Because I was talking to this executive director about you know, this balance of good and evil when you're talking about technology and I said, You want to do a game with me and she's like, Yeah, I said, OK, we're gonna bring up chatGPT Super Easy.

And I said, Um, let's see what it does. So I plugged in, write me an email and the voice of an eight year old girl living in this town that whose parents are yelling at her and you know it may be abused. Not she's not sure she's scared. She's concerned that it you know, F in some cues popped out the response, and I gave it to the executive director.

I said, Does this sound real to you?

And she said, Absolutely.

I said, So you would you respond to that?

And she said, Absolutely, we would respond to that.

Uh, I said, So how do you start training the human recipients to be a bit more weary or leery of these things and saying, Is my Spidey sense going off?

You had mentioned, You know, technology is a willing facilitator, and technology can be immoral.

One of the conversations that Stefani and I have been having in the tech space is Have you thought about these types of attacks?

Have you thought about, um, these types of actions have you threat?

Model them?

Have you put in place controls?

Because, as you might imagine, there's a lot of money and time and energy and effort that goes into Let's keep out a nation-state actor from breaking into our site and not a lot of time or 10 go. That goes to OK.

If two people are on the site, how do we make sure even if they once had a relationship, how do we make sure that that relationship is correctly reflected in the technology and that if one partner is not behaving appropriately that there's a way to mitigate that risk. Almost no time and attention seems to go into that. Mm mm Mm mm.

We're still relying on human beings to make those calls and to flag that, um for some of the organisations that were involved with the with sightline, some of our members are dealing with those types of forms where they do have kind of interactions between people. And they asked me all the time.

They're like, How do we How do we sort of monitor this?

And I said, I'm from my experience. It's You've got to be paying attention.

Yeah, we've got to be paying attention.

And we've got to be giving people safe outlets to come and say, You know what?

That didn't feel right.

Because, as you know as well as I do, I can say something here amongst us and I can smile and I can hand gesture like I do. And it sounds great.

And I can say the same thing on a text message, and someone's gonna be like, What?

The fudge.

Why is she mad at me?

Right.

So, having that bringing that human back into those systems I think is absolutely important. And yet that's where we come into the challenges of, Well, that doesn't scale, Kelley. We've got to automate everything. You know. We can't look at all the network traffic over the world. We've got to actually automate things. I get that.

But we also have to bring back the human into looking at these things and monitoring these platforms and these relationships.

Um, and we have to step back and let people know that it's not OK.

You know, if you if you walk down the street and you punch someone in the face, you know that that's not OK for most of the population. If you post something on social media, something awful about them calling them names that, like, apparently is OK Mm, not so much.

So we have to start thinking about how do we build these translations between this physical space and this digital space?

And I I'm so glad you brought that up because I think oftentimes the the thought is all right. We need to teach the victims how to be smarter victims. I would say you would say that, but oftentimes it's how it I hear it right, we we will do a Q and a with a live audience.

And people be like, How do I teach, uh, women not to fall for this?

So But the flip side is, how do we teach perpetrators not to perpetrate?

Right.

How do we make sure it's clear that this is not OK?

There's a human on the other side. These are our patterns of behaviours that are unacceptable. Exactly. That's the biggest challenge.

And it's you know what?

It's getting harder by generation.

Really?

What is striking to me and this actually popped up?

Um, not too soon after I finished PhD where, uh, my daughter was being bullied.

Ok, uh, in high school and, uh, you know, you've heard of finsta accounts, right?

So kids who set up fake fake instagram accounts So kids will set up an instagram account as an example that they share with family and friends in the general public.

And then they set up what's called a finsta account, and a finsta account is a fake instagram account where they get to just have it be the small group or they get to like, I don't know, do weird teenager stuff right?

Not always bad, just weird. And my daughter, you know, she was being bullied and she showed me this account.

And I was like, You know, I immediately reacted with how can you have this and I and I looking back on it, I was like, Gosh, I should have known better because when she also showed it to her school, the adults also reacted with Oh my God, how could you have that account and what's going on and blah, blah, blah And, you know, And she came back to me with this really eloquent response and she said, Mom, I have a community because she went.

She used to go to concerts all the time.

She said, Mom, I have a community of people that I connect with through that account who know me as that person. And when they see me in the audience because of all the concert pictures, I point out I have people that I like and that are really my community. And she's like, Please don't take that away from me And it made my breath leave my body and I was like, Holy cow!

So as you know, a 50 something year old mom. My reaction when a kid or somebody is being abused with technology. My fierce reaction even today is to shut it down, lock it up. Let's put it in a box. We've got a generation of kids and young adults 30 something, Gosh, 30 something that they have to have it because those are their connections. That is how they operate their lives, that those are the communities.

Those are the support systems.

I mean, well, did you ever think that we would have mental health professionals working with people through apps on our phone?

Right?

All right.

And it makes me always step back and say, OK, am I the old lady in the room?

Should I really kind of check my walker at the door?

Um, because we've we do have, you know, I hate the terms digital natives and all that stuff, but But we do have a population of people who interacting through Facebook for good or bad or through other social media platforms is their community. And we can't take victims away from their community. That's what helps you survive.

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. And we can't take a stance of well, just that Don't do it right. The abstinence model I If you're concerned about getting stock, just get off the Internet.

Who who can get off the Internet these days and everything?

You give up for that?

No, I I'm really I'm really pleased we had the conversation today. I really admire the work you're doing. If a nonprofit is listening, if they're like, yeah, we absolutely need help with this.

How do they get in touch with you?

What does that process look like?

Just reach out to sightlines. Security.org. We've got a website. We've got a kickstart programme. That is fun. It's not like cybersecurity jargon.

Oh, my God. We can't do this. It's expensive. All that stuff. Um my mission is really to help nonprofits of any size or mission bring cybersecurity into their business operations.

Do you want to know what my least favourite month is of?

The whole year was probably.

Is it October?

Yes.

You know why?

It's probably not Pizza Awareness Month, the Cybersecurity Awareness month. I hate it. I hate it because it shouldn't be special. It should be how we work, how we run our businesses, how we serve our communities. How we engage with each other and we just need to start looking at it from an angle of Wow, we can actually do better.

One of the lessons that I learned, um, in my own journey was and I remember this as I was in my PhD programme, I kept thinking, Oh, my gosh, you know, I was a victim and my story is out, and now I'm getting a PhD and everybody's gonna expect me to be perfect.

Everybody's gonna expect me never to stumble, never to have a cyber incident, you know, in the like, really, I kept thinking like, Holy cow, how am I gonna do that?

That's just ridiculous.

And then I got over that quickly, and I'm like, Look, I can't control the Boogeyman under the bed, right?

I can only control Kelley, and I can only work with technology to the depth and breadth of my knowledge of it, and lean on the people that I care about to say.

I don't know that Can someone help me?

And?

And I think in addition to that, in addition to reaching out to people for help, this idea that you just need to be aware of things is not helpful. There are so many things to be aware of so many risks in this world. So many things that could go bad. I if I had to just stop and think and be aware of every bad thing that can happen.

Based on any decision, I would never get anything done. Nothing would ever happen. Exactly.

But you know what would tell you?

Hm?

And what?

I didn't learn that I probably should have learned back in 2000. Something I won't tell you is, uh I didn't listen to my gut.

Yeah, I didn't I didn't listen to my gut. I didn't take a pause. I didn't trust my gut to say that person.

Hm?

Something's wrong with that. Something's off. Can't put my finger on it. Something's off. And so now I listen to my gut and I take a pause and I start to sort of breathe and engage my brain instead of just like we're so like.

Click, click, click And do this. And you know this monitor and that monitor I'm like, No, something weird comes up. Take a pause. The greatest security detector is your Spidey sense. I believe. And the greatest security control is the take a pause and give yourself space to really think through what needs to happen next.

Yes, exactly.

Oh, can I use that?

Well, 100% cheers. Now I'm just repeating what you said. Kelley. Thank you so much for coming out of the show today. It's been a pleasure.

Well, thank you so much for inviting me. It was really wonderful to meet you both. All right with that. Thank you so much for tuning into Securing Sexuality. Your source of information you need to protect yourself and your relationships. Securing Sexuality is brought to you by the Bound Together Foundation a 501 C three nonprofit. From the bedroom to the cloud. We're here to help you navigate safe sex in a digital age.

Be sure to check out our website SecuringSexuality.com for links to more information about the topics we've discussed here today as well as our live events, and join us again for more fascinating conversations about the intersection of sexuality and technology. Have a great week

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In today's digital age, where information spreads like wildfire, rumors and perceptions play a significant role in shaping our relationships, particularly when it comes to intimacy. The advent of social media platforms and the ease of communication have undoubtedly revolutionized the way we connect with others. However, along with these advancements come the potential dangers of rumors and misperceptions, which can profoundly affect the intimacy we experience in our relationships. In this blog post, we will delve into the impact of rumors and perceptions on intimacy in the digital age, exploring the various ways they can shape and alter our connections with others. 

The Power of Rumors: 
Rumors have always existed, but their influence has been magnified in the digital age. With the click of a button, a rumor can be shared with thousands, if not millions, of people within seconds. This rapid dissemination of information can have a profound impact on intimacy, as rumors often distort the truth and create false narratives about individuals or relationships. When rumors spread about someone's fidelity, for example, it can erode trust and intimacy within a partnership, leading to doubt and insecurity. Furthermore, rumors can also stem from misunderstandings or misinterpretations of actions or words. In the digital age, where communication is often limited to text-based interactions, it becomes easier for rumors to arise due to the absence of nonverbal cues that aid in understanding intentions and emotions. This lack of context can lead to misperceptions and, consequently, the spread of damaging rumors that negatively impact intimacy. 

Perception and Self-Presentation: 
In the digital age, perception is not only influenced by rumors but also by the carefully crafted self-presentations individuals curate on social media platforms. With the ability to filter and edit our lives, we have become masters of presenting ourselves in a particular light. However, this curated persona can often be far from reality, leading to misperceptions about who we truly are. When individuals present an idealized version of themselves online, it can create unrealistic expectations and false perceptions of intimacy. For instance, someone may present themselves as always happy and in perfect relationships on social media, leading others to feel inadequate or envious of their seemingly flawless lives. These misperceptions can hinder genuine intimacy as individuals strive to live up to unrealistic expectations rather than embracing their authentic selves. 

The Role of Digital Communication: 
Digital communication, while convenient, can also contribute to the erosion of intimacy. Text-based interactions lack the nuances and subtleties of face-to-face communication, making it easier for misperceptions to arise. Misunderstandings in tone or intent can occur, leading to conflicts and strained relationships. Moreover, the immediacy and brevity of digital communication can lead to impulsive reactions and hasty judgments. In the absence of real-time dialogue, individuals may make assumptions based solely on the limited information available. These assumptions can then fuel rumors and perpetuate misperceptions, ultimately damaging intimacy. 

Navigating Rumors and Perceptions: 
To mitigate the impact of rumors and perceptions on intimacy in the digital age, it is crucial to approach communication and relationships with mindfulness and empathy. Here are a few strategies to consider: 

• Open and Honest Communication: Foster open and honest communication in your relationships. Encourage dialogue that allows for clarification and understanding, reducing the likelihood of misperceptions and rumors. 
• Critical Thinking: Develop critical thinking skills to evaluate the credibility of information before accepting or sharing it. Engage in fact-checking and be cautious of the potential consequences rumors can have on intimacy. 
• Authenticity: Embrace authenticity in your digital self-presentation. Rather than striving for perfection, be genuine and share both the highs and lows of your life. This can help foster deeper connections and intimacy based on real experiences. 
• Empathy and Compassion: Approach digital interactions with empathy and compassion. Recognize that misperceptions can easily arise and seek to understand others' perspectives before making judgments. 

In the digital age, rumors and perceptions have a profound impact on intimacy. The rapid spread of rumors, along with the carefully crafted self-presentations on social media, can distort reality and hinder genuine connections. However, by prioritizing open communication, critical thinking, authenticity, and empathy, we can navigate the digital landscape more effectively and foster deeper, more meaningful intimacy. It is essential to remember that behind every screen is a human being, deserving of understanding and connection.

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Key Concepts:
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• Cardboard beds Olympic Village
• Paris 2024 Summer Olympics
• Rumors debunked
• Intersection of sex and technology
• Condoms in the Olympic Village
• Promoting safe sex
• Cognitive biases and information evaluation
• Technologists and user perception

Hello and welcome to Securing Sexuality, the podcast where we discuss the intersection of intimacy and information Security. I'm Wolf Goerlich, a hacker. I'm Stefani Goerlich, a sex therapist. Together, we're going to discuss what safe sex looks like in a digital age. So this is something I want to ask you about.

And in the moment between finding and hearing about this and this podcast, this story actually got stranger.

So before I get to the story, how have you been?

Where have we been, baby?

Where have we not been?

We, as I have told to anybody who will listen to me complain, have not been home for more than 72 hours. Since February, I have lost track of everywhere we've been. But I do know we've been in at least five states, two countries and two continents this spring. So we've been everywhere. Yes.

So, dear listenerI hope you had a great memorial holiday, and I'm sorry we missed you. The one place we haven't been is on the air. We were We took a week off.

Yeah, but to be fair, people get sick of listening to us anyway. They need a chance to, you know, not hear our voices. Or maybe to catch up on the back catalogue. Whatever you know, they they choose to do with their time. Giving them a break from keeping up with us is, I think, an important boundary to set. Occasionally, I love the therapist. Spin on this.

But, you know, I come to you for two things I come to you for, for the therapist, spin the the human side. And I also come to you for sports information. Oddly enough, yeah, it is strange, because I am the least athletic person I know in terms of actual, you know, willingness to move or even be vertical most of the time.

And yet you have told me more than once over the years that I am both the girlies and sportiest person you've ever met. I almost said ever married, but really ever dated. Both are probably true.

So tell me about the Olympics in particular.

Tell me about thewhich Olympics are we coming up on?

Is it summer?

Is it winter?

Is it Do they have a spring Olympics?

What's going on?

They do not have a spring Olympics.

Andif you look outside your window, you might getsome context clues for which set of games are coming up.

Do you see Snow, baby?

I'm checking right now.

No, it's green out there.

When is the green?

We have leaves. Green means summer.

Yeah, we are coming up on the 2024 Summer Olympics, which are happening in Paris, which is one of the cities we were recently in. So actually, that means five states, three countries and three continents we've been in. I need to up my tally.

So yes, we we went to Paris to do in depth, detailed investigative journalism into the summer Olympics.

sex be scandal.

Now, in this case takes the form of buying a souvenir pen with the weird red blob that Paris has decided is the mascot for this Olympic Games.

Yeah, I.

I mean, I'm woefully over-exaggerating our investigative journalist skills, but tell me, tell me about the why There would need to be an anti-sex bed and why this really hit the zeitgeist?

Because I saw this I. I snipped it to talk to you about it on the podcast. And as I mentioned between the time that I saw it and the time we're having this conversation, they came out and they're, like, debunked it. They're like, No, no, no. It's not meant to be a sex anti sex bed. So I I can give context.

But before I do that, maybe you should tell people what you mean when you say anti sex bed because they might not be up on this the way you are.

Well, that's why I'm asking you about There's a making the rounds of social media. A few days ago, there were pictures of a bed that was being built for the Paris 2024 Olympics.

You know what?

Now that you told me this in Paris, I see that Paris is actually in the picture. They have a little comforter. This is Paris 2024. This is all coming together now. This is fabulous.

and I was going around as Oh, look, they've released anti sex beds to prohibit or discourage people in the Olympic Village from getting it on.

Yeah, So historically, Olympians have been notorious for as you so delicately put it getting it on.

Um, every time there is a round of Olympics, there are stories of the S exploits that occur within the Olympic Village, which is the space that is created for the athletes tolive in while they are participating in the Games. So if you imagine something between summer camp and a frat indoor sorority mixerthat's what the Olympic Village is.

And when you think about the fact that you know, most, competing athletes are sort of in their like, very late teens to late twenties, I mean, it's really, really rare to have an Olympian in their thirties. You've got a lot of young people at the prime of life at the peak of physicalathleticism, who are all thrown together for a a number of weeks.

Um, hortis horniness inevitably ensues. So I got it. Now.

Would a uncomfortable bed made out of cardboard help on that?

I mean, it is we're gonna get to I wanna know why this took off like a wildfire is a rumour.

But first off, in your professional opinion, would this bed be an appropriate deterrent?

I have never seen anybody deter two people or three people or 12 people who want to have sex. If people want to give and receive pleasure, they are going to find opportunities to give and receive pleasure back in.

You know, my my undergrad days when I was doing my my practicums one of my field placements was in a rotating homeless shelter. And even though themen, women and Children were housed separatelywe often had to break up sort of illicit sort of trips that would happen in church bathrooms, in school basements, wherever they could find a spot.

So people have been sleeping and procreating on uncomfortable surfaces for the majority of human history.

Honestly, if we think about it, the nice comfy mattress is a very modern thing.

And no, you know, from a a an evolutionary and social perspective, I don't think a cardboard bed is gonna deter people that really want to have sex.

So how did this rumour take off then?

And we we talk aboutmisinformation on this podcast from time to time.

And I think this is actually a really intriguing example of that, right?

Like couple people posted here and there, and then Suddenly it's all overtiktok and social and and Instagram and end to end to end, to end, to end.

So what made this particular story?

Do you think so?

So intriguing.

So what?

What made it something that spread like it did.

Well, I mean, I think a part of it is you're talking about something that's like a classic porn scenario, right?

Like the young hot athletes thrown together. And then there's also the fact that every time the Olympics happen, like I said, these sort of concerns come up. And some years, the solution is a plethora of condoms throughout the Olympic Village. And sometimes the solution is to just, you know, stick your fingers in your ears and for the organisers to chant la, la, la, la la and for us to ignore it entirely.

But this time, you know the the solution is cardboard beds. So I think it's it's a trope that we see every time the Olympics happen. Interestingly, you know, in thinking back in my memory over the years and again I, I am your sportiest partner, but not necessarily overly athletic myself. I. I cannot catch or throw a ball to save my life. Please don't ask me to run.

Even if you're chasing me, I'm just gonna die. The bear will get me.

That is, that is my athletic capacity. So in my limited sports knowledge of the Olympics, I feel like these topics only really ever come up with the Summer Games. Like I. I can't remember a winter Olympics where this has been as buzzed about the way it is and maybe Sochi. I don't know. I feel like so no Sochi was Russia. They did not have the condoms there.

But I, I think perhaps there's something about the fact that it's Paris. I think it's something about the fact that it's summertime.

I mean, you're talking about swimming andbeach volleyball and gymnastics.

I mean, it's a lot of our skimpier sports. One might argue, right. It's hard to feel sexy if you're in head to toe ski gear, and I'm wondering if maybe, you know, my armchair hypothesis would be that perhaps that's a factor.

So I did some quick research while you were You're answering and it seems like at least on the surface now again, you know, double check this this is a two minute Internet search and a cross referencing that, yes, indeed, the rumours and myths aboutsex of the limbic spread more frequently during Summer Olympics and winter. Lim. So I think you're onto something there.

I'm telling you, there's something about a Speedo man and you don't get Speedos in the Winter Games. You get cross by in the winter games, but not a Speedo.

Did they really pass out like big bowls of condoms?

Or is that was that AAA myth, too?

No, The the Olympic Village condoms is a real thingthat that has been one of the solutions in the past. Wow.

OK, I will say with 2024 with Paris. If you wanna talk about the mixed messages our culture gives young people about sex and intimacy, they are both providing anti sex cardboard beds. Although you've already said that might be a little bit of hyperbole and also providing 300,000 condoms in the Olympic Village in Paris this summer.

300,000, that's a lot that is yes, well, summertime in Paris.

I mean, live it up. Live it up for some context. There are apparently a slightly over 14,000 residents in the Olympic Village. So let's do some armchair math.

300,000 divided by 14,000. They're actually thinking every resident of the Olympic Village might have sex about 21 times.

I mean, you you gotta probably double that if it's heterosexual sex.

But yes, what does that mean?

Double it if it's heterosexual sex because you'd have two people having sex, right?

Only one condom?

OK, that makes sense. That makes sense.

Well, they're not saying partners. It's not 21 partners.

It's 21 concept, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, So I mean, but I don't I don't This is also Pride Month.

And so, in honour of Pride Month, I don't want to assume heteronormative in the Olympic Village, and that's true.

I mean, we are talking about people of diverse backgrounds, of all orientations, but it is true that there are a plethora of orientations represented at the Paris Summer Games.

All right, so the reality is these are cardboard beds. They're meant to be disposable, easy to clean up. It's apparently a very similar bed than the one they use in Tokyo.

it's a air weave mattress, so it's it'sapparently comfortable, I guess, even though it doesn't necessarily look like comfortable I, I mean, one of the big critiques of the Olympics in general is that host countries spend hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars building spaces, renovating stadiums, creating new sporting grounds for these events to be used for a couple of weeks and then really never again, right?

So I suspect that these beds are meant to be responsible economically to be perhaps environmentally friendly. Cardboard is recyclable. I think that there were probably lots and lots of factors that went into the design of these beds that have nothing to do with preventing sex. But the Olympics and and regulation of sex have been so tied together for so long thatI can see why people would make that assumption.

So, you know, one of the things I think about from a design perspective is the extreme user. The extreme user is usually one that can be leading edge, can give you an idea of where things are going, can give you an idea ofnew ideas for the rest of us.

So, you know, we we are. If we imagine the bell curve.

Obviously, the Olympic participants and competitors are way on the far side of that curve.

What can we learn aboutthe nature of intimacy about the nature ofcommunity from this story?

Right. We got a whole bunch of people coming together for a few months, short period of time, sleeping on cardboard, albeit with a comfortable mattressand and enjoying themselves in a variety of different ways while working their butts off. What does that tell us about the the nature of intimacy, I think. For one thing, there's often an argument made that it is sex and intimacy.

Take a backseat when we're intensely focused on something else, right?

Um, that is a complaint or an rationale that I hear often in my practise, that I've been so focused on work. I've been so busy with the kids I've been in in the weeds in school.

Whatever the case might be, there tends to be this idea that where we are intensely laser focused on a goal or a task or a project that the first thing that drops off is intimacy with our partners and and really, what the Olympics shows is that that's not necessarily true.

You're talking about 14,000 people that are there for the single most important moment in their lives that they have trained for since childhood, that they are putting copious amounts of physical and emotional effort into every single day. And yet it's a community that still is being given hundreds of thousands of condoms in anticipation that some of them are going to use it.

So one thing we can say is not, you know well, your argument is invalid because I think people are allowed to set the boundaries and and prioritise where they need to prioritise. But often it's that internal thing. It's that I can't possibly think about this while I also have that. And so I think the Olympics can be used as sort of a permission giving moment for ourselves to think about.

You know, is this something that I genuinely don't have space for right now?

Or is this something I've been told I shouldn't prioritise right now, and those are two very different headspace. I like that obviously prioritise make time make space. But the fact that this I was a little bit of an urban legend for a couple weeks makes me think of another urban legend. Or perhaps not I.

I guess I need to know some myth busting from you If you are trying to be an elite athlete, right?

We oftentimes hearthat people who are trying to exercise or trying to achieve their goals should abstain, especially men.

Right?

There's this idea thatyou you lose virility. You lose energy, you lose any number of things testosterone goes down, or I've heard that rumour as well.

whatwhat is your thoughts on that like, are they going to be less effective?

At least the male performance and I I love to hear if female performers havehave similar stories, like at least for men versus women. You hear about this most in the men's side.

But, you know, obviously I'd like to hear both genders, but is there any truth to this idea that by engaging in activities that we all love that there could potentially beyou know, worse in terms of being an athlete?

I'm so curious right now.

Are you avoiding saying the word sex?

No engaging in activities we all love sounds very euphemistic.

Well, I am a very euphemistic person.

Um, so there is There are copious online communities that put out a lot of pseudoscience about the benefits of semen retention, masturbate, masturbation avoidance, avoiding sex.

Um, the actual science behind that is not there. When when you really dig into the medical claims that are made aboutavoiding sex and intimacy, avoiding ejaculation, things like that.

And, you know, you asked for both genders, but it tends to be a very male oriented sort of theory and space. I don't hear that a lot from women. I thought so. Yeah.

Um, but it's not backed up by by actual science or evidence.

my favourite, most eloquent rebuttal of that whole idea is the movieBull Durham with Kevin Costner and Susan Sarandon.

I. I keep threatening to get you to watch it, and you keep thinking it's a sports movie and it is a movie set in the sports world. But really, it is alove triangle. And it is a sexy, sexy, eloquent argument in favour of the role that intimacy can have on enhancing athletic performance.

So, you know, if reading academic journals or medical literature is not your GM, I think Bull Durham could win you over on why?

This isn't the theory that makes a lot of sense.

Well, the the thing is, the only Durham triangle I like is the research triangle in Raleigh Durham. So every time you say it, I think Raleigh Durham and you know, II, I think about work.

All right, well, I think I'm that maybe tonight we're gonna have to watch Bull Durham so that you can truly, you know, understand the topic. We have to do our deep research when we do a podcast episode.

Plus, it's just hot guys. If II I know that you know Gen Z is now they're all adults. So Bull Durham might actually not be on your radar. And if you haven't seen it, you should check it out. Unmitigated classic.

The the one argument I can see is the the simple idea of fatigue, right?

If you have an important meeting or an important presentation or, you know, you're competing for a gold medal the next morning, maybe don't stay up all night having vigorous sexual activity. There's something to be said for getting a good night's rest. But really, that's what it comes down to. It's giving your body ample time and space to both have pleasure and performance and downtime.

And if you're scheduling well, and if you're setting good boundaries around sleep, especially ahead of things like you know, the long jump orwhat's the the shot put?

I like the shot put. It doesn't seem like it should be an Olympic event, and yet, somehow it is. You just throw a ball really far.

Um, a big metal ball, I get it. But my point is, get enough sleep. Don't stay up all night having sex and then celebrate your achievements with a partner or two or 12 of your choosing.

All right, so it's two myths busted, right?

These beds are not anti sex. And by the way, sex doesn't necessarilydisrupt your your athletic performance within some some parameters. You keep saying 12 and I feel like 12 has a meeting. I don't know how you go.

23, 12. But let me ask you this.

I, I know you are a A history buff.

Um, is is that number 12 based in any history or what's the What's the back story there?

Um, well, it's just me trying to be inclusive. We have lots of poly listeners. I have lots of poly clients. I don't want to assume that they have a diet or a triad. I'm just being open to whatever relationship structure people create for themselves. There's no symbolic meaning behind the 12 there, although you know 12 is a multiple of four.

The Olympics happen every four years if you really want to stretch the the symbology there.

Um, it It's interesting, though in kind of thinking about you mentioned the history of things.

You know, we have this idea thatthis has been a long time problem. And it was only in 1988 that we started talking about the sexual behaviour of Olympians, and that was because of the A I DS crisis.

Actually, the Tokyo Olympics in 88 also a summer games, I believeI'll double check myself, though, was the first games to, provide condoms and the messaging at the time was not that it was for the competitors and it was a Summer Games but wasto spread awareness of HIV A I DS They gave them condoms saying they're gonna take them to their home countries to normalise conversations around safe sex and normalise.

Having negotiations around A I DS prevention, which I actually think is a great idea. I don't know that I believe that they're messaging there. I think it was probably a little bit of both. A lot of you know, Hey, if you guys are going to be on top of each other, literally and metaphorically in the Olympic Village, please do so responsibly.

But also since we're doing this for the first time, here is sort of a a socially and culturally acceptable reason for doing that. And they've been given out at every game sinceBut in 2020 there was a little bit of a different message.

Um, what do you think that might have been?

0, 2020?

Well, obviously, 2020 was the year of the pandemic, so masking covid 2020 was the first time there was an actual intimacy ban also in the Tokyo Olympics. So in 88 Tokyo introduces condoms in 2020 Tokyo goes OK, you know Covid is a thing you guys need to maintain 6 ft distancing in all sorts of ways. And so what we're really seeing is really, more than anything, a lifting of those covid restrictions.

And I think that's part of why people are interpreting this The way they are is because it wasn't really framed as another extension of covid restrictions. It was framed as a ban on intimacy in the Olympic Village. And so now that we're in 2024 people are seeing these beds as an extension of that ban.

When really I suspect there are financial and environmental adaptation?

Yeah, that does seem to be the case. The thing that intrigued me about this was the the persistence of myths and rumours.

around these beds just struck me as being very interesting because yeah, it's goes back to something we talk about all the time, right?

Which is evaluating information criticallyavoiding jumping to conclusions, being aware of your own cognitive biases.

because, man, when I saw that cross instagram I was there, I was like, Oh, yeah, of course. That makes sense.

And, you know, from your perspective, it also comes down to thinking about how people are going to use things, thinking about how your user is gonna look at what you're handing them and interpret what your intention is. Maybe the Parisian goal is to be as fiscally responsible and environmentally sound as possible for this incredibly expensive, very short term event.

But the people seeing the equipment provided created an entirely different story about what it was for and why and what the intentions were. And I think that that's something that you know. Technologists can learn, too, because a lot of times people in my world don't know what's inside your head and wouldn't necessarily have the jargony language necessary to explain it if we did.

And so thinking about how what you build is going to be perceived by the person looking at it from the outside, who doesn't necessarily have your development criteria, your back goals, all of the the behind the scenes, nuance is an important thing.

You know, that's a really good point because it doesn't matter what's in your head. It matters what the other person perceives and what the other person does, so that when it comes to product design, it's a really good takeaway.

Oh, I like that. I'm gonna have to see if I can work that. No conversation this week. All right.

Well, on that note, I think we got some good lessons learned here. It's an interesting story. We're back in the air, so thank you so much for everyone for joining us.

Do you have any final thoughts for me, love?

Just remember that as I've said many times before, everything that exists will be eroticized. Every device you create from a high tech piece of technology to a cardboard bed will be interpreted through the lens of Rule 34 for almost everybody on the planet and recognising that, accommodating that adapting to it. Preparing for it, I think, is an important part of how to head off misinformation.

Like the stories we've been talking about today?

Absolutely. So with that said, Thank you so much for tuning into Securing Sexuality. You a source of information you need to protect yourself and your relationships. Securing Sexuality is brought to you by the Bound Together Foundation. A 501 C three nonprofit. From the bedroom to the cloud. We're here to help you navigate what safe sex looks like in a digital age.

Be sure to check out our website sexual.com for links to more information about the topics we discussed here today as well as our live events. And if you are somebody in need of gender or identity affirming care, we do have a found together foundation micros grant cycle open Now you can find information about that in the show notes.

That application will be open until July 31st and until then, not July 31st. But until next time, join us again here for more fascinating conversations about the intersection of sexuality and technology. Have a great week, everyone.

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