From Small Talk To Consent: Building Better Conversations In Kink And Beyond | S4 EP116

What if your next conversation actually moved something—clarity, trust, desire—instead of just filling the air? We take a practical, unflinching look at how to communicate with intention, especially where authority exchange, kink dynamics, and real‑world constraints collide.

We start by trading the myth of “natural charisma” for craft. Using a simple conversational compass, we ask whether you’re aiming for information or relationship value before you speak, and how to guess your partner’s goals without slipping into mind‑reading. From there, we climb the topic pyramid with purpose—small talk to deep talk—while keeping curiosity alive through a two‑to‑one rhythm of questions to personal share. When energy dips, levity and vivid stories revive the room; when emotions rise, kindness aims your response at what the other person actually needs, not what proves you right.

Consent threads through every move we make: voluntary, informed, ongoing, and always revocable. We unpack how that plays out in kink scenes, polycules, and vanilla relationships—where ideals meet logistics. Public play raises bystander boundaries; 24/7 fantasies meet jobs and families; stereotypes shape how scenes are perceived. We talk safety, etiquette, and the value of entering new spaces slowly, learning written and unwritten rules, and letting silence be a green flag instead of a gap to fear. Finally, we revisit needs and boundaries lists without shame, turning repeated friction into clear agreements that support hotter, safer connection.

If you’re ready to stop guessing and start creating real value with your words—and your pauses—hit play. Subscribe, leave a review, and tell us: which maxim will you practice this week?

1/6/26

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Send in your questions. No topic is too taboo, no curiosity too small! We’re all making mistakes, growing, and exploring together!Submit your questions anonymously at aroundthekinkykampfire@yahoo.com or slide into our DMs at Twitter-KinkyKampfire, YT-AroundtheKinkyKampfire, IG-KampfireKinksters. Let’s keep the fire going! 

1/6/26

Transcript

Setting The Theme: Communication

Why Communication Skills Matter In Dynamics

Show Updates & Engagement Prompt

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Welcome back everybody to another episode of Around the Kinky Campfire. This is your superlative, superfluous, super super duper, your super duper host, HH Julius Marquise, aka just Julius or Jules, however you feel it, fancy. We have another episode for you today where I'll be talking about where I'll be talking about another topic. What that topic is, I will get into it after everybody's favorite five seconds, the ASMR five seconds, where I drink some fancy. Of course, it's not sponsored, and usually I know the name of it, but uh this time I actually do the Swalza. Got some more Swalza tequila in my fancy cup. Uh it's gonna be uh fantastic. It is actually a pretty good tequila, tastes real smooth just by itself, but I got it mixed in with a little energy drink because it's late night and it's a school night. It's been a long week, long month, long year. Good lord. We're in a month, almost a month and a half into the year, folks. It's coming by quick. Actually, by the time you hear this, we will be at a month and a half. We'll we'll be over a little month and a half into the year. Once again, it flies by. Say goodbye to January. Hello, March, pretty much. Goodbye. I mean, we're still in February, so technically we're still in February. But let's get to this ASMR five seconds. So I get into this topic for y'all. Here we go. Three, two, one. Oh, it's so cold. Tequila, it's delicious. If you want you a refreshing drink, get you some Swalza hacienda tequila. Okay? Tequila, it's delicious, and it gives you a little boost of energy. Because if you didn't know, tequila has caffeine in it. That's why it gets you frisky. Oh, y'all didn't know that now, did you? You learned something here at the Rally Kinky campfire. And speaking of learning something, let's get into today's topic, which is basically communication. Achieving convers achieving your conversation goals uh one conversation at a time. Uh let's just say car great conversationals, great communicators are not born, they are made. Conversation skills, as you know, Julius loves his skills talk here, uh, his most of the time. But we do like our skills talk. And guess what? We're gonna talk about some more here, and I just wanted to go ahead and break them down because I always talk about all the uh advanced skills, I don't even know. But we're gonna talk about skills in general, and we're gonna start right here with some conversation skills. I'm gonna break this down. We've got a little article from the Harvard Business School, um, Faculty through leadership uh from almost a year ago, March of 2025. So let's break down this article because I was doing a little research in communication. Uh, this one I had put back in the notes a long time ago, but now we're gonna talk about it here again because we like communication, we like skills here, great communication is great for dynamics, great for multiple relationships, and great for uh just uh just talks in general. So I was gonna say like queer talks, but it's more communication. So definitely in uh dynamics and definitely in relationships, because that's what we like to talk about here on Around the Kingy Campfire. New episodes on Thursdays, video episodes on Fridays, and make sure you comment on all the different things. That's a call it action. If y'all didn't know what that was, like in comments on all the different platforms. Ooh, Tequila Burps. You can comment on Spotify now. I don't know about iTunes, I don't I don't really listen to that one, but I know we're on iTunes because that's what we do. We deploy this podcast on everything. Okay, uh let's see. Conversation could have gone better, something you think about. Uh conversations is an act of continual co-creation, a continual process, something we like to do here at Around the King Campfire. Work on things for the rest of our lives forever and ever until the end of time and the days do us parts. Uh once again, it's something we like to do. So I love this article because it states a lot of the things I've been saying, and of course, I like to feed my own agenda. I don't even know what I mean by that, but it's hilarious. Okay, uh, we make thousands of fleeting micro decisions about what to say, how to say, and when, while simultaneously making constant adjustments under conditions of certain uncertainty and change. I will say uh I'm gonna talk to myself now in the future that I'm going to post this link in the description. I think I've been doing well. Hopefully, y'all see that this week um in the episode that I have out. Or the last week, I should say. Last week. We're in the future. So the episode last week, hopefully you guys got to uh check that out. QA from Reddit. Okay, so yeah, once again, this is a great article. And my notes just keep disappearing. That's great. Alright, so here we go. Let me go back to my notes.

SPEAKER_00 5:53

Do do do do do. Do do do do do.

Co‑Creating Conversations Under Uncertainty

Consent Beyond Checkboxes

Authority Exchange And Roles

SPEAKER_01 5:56

Alright, so I broke this article down because I didn't want to just read the whole entire thing. So hopefully we can keep everything in line and checked in. Ugh boy. Alright. Alright, consent is in a checkbox. So we're talking about consent now as well as the conversation because this is what we do. We love talking about consent, and I'm gonna have to read more of the research on this whole entire thing. Um, but I want to relate this to consent because of course we are in a BDSM kink uh community. We develop consent norms beyond mainstream definitions, uh voluntary, informed, and ongoing. Ongoing. Consent is always 100% revocable. Let us remember that. It's ongoing. So hopefully we can take these communication basics and skills and use them for our kink and BDSM dynamics because that's what we like to do. All right, that's what we do here on around the kinky campfire. We try to educate you. Hopefully, y'all will uh use something I say for yourself and do your own research. Uh, because I do not care about being correct. I just have facts and I will give my opinion on them. Uh so well, right, correct. I don't care about being right. You could do your own research on certain things. How about that? So I hope it inspires you like a little jumping board, jumping off board. One of these episodes where I give out information, you guys can use that for yourself. I'm feeling very inspired because I gave my relationship anarchy talk. Finally, the whole entire lesson. I feel like I needed like two more hours, but I finally got the whole two-hour uh talk in recently, and I felt good about it. So now I'm pumped to record more episodes. And I'll continue to work on that presentation as well. And we did a little improv and everybody enjoyed that too. Okay, hopefully y'all will see that a little clip of it or something on the uh YouTubes. Alright, so especially in Kink Dynamics, we have power exchange negotiations and community cultures shape these norms. So um now we don't use power exchange, we use authority exchange. So another evolving topic. Alright? We'd like to evolve things here. Research has found that our spaces uh consent is less sign here and more aware in dynamic. We're evolving and we keep talking. Yep, that's a whole entire thing. Okay. So we have authority because we don't use power anymore. Somebody is in control. There's a left side of the slash and there's a right side of the slash. There's bottom uh uh energy and top energy. So somebody's in control, especially during a scene, and sometimes those, you know, some people have like 24 or 7 dynamics. So we're we're hitting the whole entire spectrum here. All right, and communication is fundamental in all of that. So I hope you guys understand this. And let me go back to the article. Uh keep conversations moving. Alright, conversation requires significant mind reading and guessing to cut down on the guesswork. Hope y'all know how Julius feels about those assumptions. God dang it, let's get him out of there. Let's see. Brooks, the lady of the article, suggests uh giving a little pre-conversation thought to your goals and your partner's probable goals. Probable. Ooh, with the help of a conversational compass, ask yourself if what you want is high informational or low information. In other words, are you just feeling time or are you learning looking to learn certain things from your partner? Ooh, high relational or low relational? Are you looking to create collective value through a conversation or are your needs more self-focused? Uh increasing self-awareness of your goals can help you prioritize what's important. If you don't, oh my goodness gracious, if you hit you hit it right there on the head. That is that is such good stuff right there. So why are we having these conversations? That's the question. What is the point of all this? Uh stop wasting people's time. How about that? I'm just gonna get right into my opinion on this whole entire thing. Why are we just filling time? I realize, listen, okay, so really hard not to be super generalizing here, especially me coming from the introvert side. I do not need to just talk to be talking. I do not need to talk to fill space. I learned recently there are people, no, I didn't learn recently, I relearned recently that there are people that can't handle silence, which is kind of okay with me. I know for me, one of my green flags, I guess, is that I need partners that are just fine just being silent, just have no issues. Good 10, 20 minutes, just sitting there, you know, we can be feeling each other's energy uh or just feeling each other so physically or metaphorically, just being in each other's presence, not needing to say anything. Let's just have a nice little conversation there, or just mentally. Mental conversation, non-communicative con conversation where we're just feeling each other out. How about that? Can we do that? Is that totally fine? And just be in child in each other's presence. Cuddling is my form of non nonverbal communication with a partner, and just sitting there just feeling each other. It's so good. Um good stuff. And uh I realize that not everybody can just sit there with a silence, it just gets awkward and then you have to fill the space. But let's just not waste each other's time with that stuff. Maybe we just need to sit silenc silently and just feel each other out. How about that? Uh high relational, roll original, or creative value through conversation or needs. Okay, so create collective value through the conversation. What at the what is the point of this conversation? And they give a nice little chart, which once again I'll put the link for this whole entire article in the description. So good, so good stuff. Um why again? I have to be super super generalizational. General general general generalize. Be super generalize a lot here because it's like if you're not creating collective value, what is the point in the conversation with a partner? So I'm very confused by that. You gotta ask yourself, what, why, why are we doing this thing if we're not trying to work on something? What is the point of this? Uh my goodness, it's so weird. Um, okay, so back to dynamics. Um I would say even just like regular uh relationship in general. Uh ideal consent norms meet real world complexities, roleplay dynamics, trust, assumptions, community pressure, and silence once again. So we have ideal consent norms. So of course we like to say, oh, like free use and consensual non-consent, somebody might be giving a class on that soon. Um, is quote unquote ideal, but real world things is is there really ever such thing as 24-7? Can you really do that? Is that uh just a fantasy? I know people like to put that into practice and put that on their kinks list, but I mean, people have jobs, you gotta make money unless you find some way to make money with your 24-7 dynamic, which I would like to know. Your please tell me how you did that. That would be amazing to figure out. But really, you know, most people have to go to work, so you can't really do it there, or can you? Something you should ask yourself. So there's those ideal things, and I know I like Primal Julius here, likes a good takedown scene. But if you on the video and you see me, and I've said this before, I present a certain way, and I like to present a certain way with uh partners that are smaller and of a different skin complexion than mine, and that wouldn't be good if I was pursuing them in public, because you know, there's stereotypes out there, and it's like, yeah, I want to do that, and it's fun for both of us because we both consent about that, but uh does everybody else consent to that? Yummy, to quiet Swowza! Uh so yeah, those are things to take into consideration when you're doing kink stuff, especially in the normal public face. Uh I know I think we've talked about this before, but there's people that do like puppy play and like collar and leash play, sometimes out in the public, and it's like, did the public consent to this kind of thing? I don't know if any of you campsters have heard about this, but it's been in the news before in the past and probably will be again, kinking public. Yeah, are we with consenting individuals? I have mixed feelings about that because of course if there's anybody underage there, I would probably not do any of that. So kind of hurts the fun parts of relationship when you can't just be free with yourself because you gotta consider outside uh sources. But again, that's why we're here on the Round and Kinky Campfires. My voice breaks. We're out here to make the taboo more normal, so that's what we're trying to do. We're gonna keep working on it. Ooh, boy. Alright, and then okay, moving on. Being in new munches, new play spaces where people assume a yes because you keep showing up, etc. So I know me, when I've gone into the newest places sometimes, I even get inappropriately touched, not consentually, non-consensually touched in places that even my partners aren't allowed to touch in general. I'm not gonna go into specifics there, but there are places right there. I know you're like, what the fuck? Yes, exactly. There are places there that are my body that my even my partners aren't uh allowed to touch.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

Yeah, so that's uh that's a uh that's a thing.

Cutting Assumptions With A Conversational Compass

Silence, Small Talk, And Relational Value

SPEAKER_01 16:28

Um yeah, that's a that's a thing. Um so when you go into a new space, uh dungeon, party, whatever, um just make sure you get all the rules, hopefully beforehand, but definitely but while you're there, um making sure that you're following everybody's rules. There's always like unwritten rules, especially depending on your spaces, and each space has different rules. So if you're in like a kink space versus a swinger space, or just like a a party space, pretty much like a house party where you most people know everybody. It's like you're coming in and you're in the new person, you best get those rules ahead of time if you can, or just like get them while you're there. I myself, as just a normal thing, I just relax while I'm there. It kind of seems standoffish if I'm going to a new place, but like the first four or five, six times, I'm just chilling. I'm chilling um by myself, uh kind of sort of for the most part, and uh, I'll make I'll talk to people, but that's pretty much it. I don't really participate uh as much uh as most people would in a in a space where adult things are happening, but I will uh lay back and get the lay of the land. Let's just say that lay of the land, know the host, people in charge, the leadership, uh longtime veterans, and those kind of things before I start playing. Uh all these things go into communication. Almost seems like I'm jumping around, but really I'm not, because this is all unspoken stuff that happens as well when you go into spaces. And I'll just say that in most of the taboos, uh alternative spaces, that uh this kind of stuff happens. Now, this article is by a harvard person, but you know what? I would use this for our kind of spaces as well. Uh so let me go back to this article. So we have uh four maxims. Interesting, uh, when it comes to uh uh communication. Uh topics, asking, levity, and kindness. So we have topics. Life blood of the conversation visualize the universe of possible topics as a pyramid. The base of the pyramid is formed by small talk. Ew! With the top being more uh serious, deep conversations. Ooh. Toward the top of the pyramid, I think. Ooh, okay, okay, okay, okay. I like this. Okay. I hate small talk. Ugh. It's like the food pyramid. Uh yeesh. But, anyways, a lot of small talk, and then you get more suspicious as you go up to the point. Uh, next maxim is asking. One chief conversational misstep is not asking enough questions. Lead with curiosity, people. Lead with curiosity. If you are those awkward persons like myself that have weird reactions to social situations, leading with curiosity and asking questions is always good, but don't be an interrogator or an interviewer. That is not good too. Remember, give a little bit of this about yourself. I'd say like a two-one ratio, two questions to one one parts personal information. To Kuila. So just remember that. Um don't forget to ask questions to be curious. If you give off a curious persona, it's a whole lot easier to make friends, new friends in general. Um, examples of asking introductory questions in here as well. You guys can check that out for yourself. Uh, next maxim is levity. When conversations die, it's often because they're boring. Levity is the best way to keep people engaged in the conversation. Oh, there's so much to this. Um if you know a uh Vanissa Vaughn Edwards, she is she is a researcher that has uh a lot of information on how to make uh your conversation and your social skills go up. Good lord, check her out. She has interesting ways of answering questions that make it less boring for the person you're talking to. Give those a try. You know what? You don't have to agree with all of them, but give them a try. See if they work out for you. I'm running out of time. Oh, there's so much to talk about there. Okay. And lastly, we have kindness to be a kind conversationalist. You need to be thinking about what your partner needs, whether it is encouragement, tough feedback, new ideas, a quick laugh. Oh, so many different things. Ooh, unfortunately, our own egocentrism can get in the way even when we try to prioritize and pursue others' conversational needs. Um, so once again, you can't really be a mind reader. They listed off a couple of different things. It's like, how the hell would you even know what to provide there? I would say just be emphatic, show some empathy. Uh don't invalidate people, be validating, don't do the well, I would no. Nobody, nobody wants to hear that shit. Um, so many different things. All right, there's more to this article, but I can't get to it in the amount of time I have. Why are you resetting on me, stupid, stupid, stupid phone? Okay. Stop it.

unknown 21:07

Oh my god.

Ideal Norms Vs Real‑World Complexities

SPEAKER_01 21:08

Okay. Let's see here. So I had to talk about all that. Um, alright, so oh man, conversations. This is gonna be a multi-parter. Okay, back to consent and uh authority exchange and dynamics. Alright, so we have the psychological themes in in those areas power, desire, taboo, trust, vulnerability. Um, we have to keep those all in mind. There is a power or authority exchange. There is desire, I would say lust. Um, all these things are also libido. So thinking about libido, uh, it's not just the sexual energy, it's the motivation energy in the first place. Why are we doing these things? I ask you, why are we doing those things? Um, yeah, these are all reasons and everything that we got to get to. I want to dive deeper into this, but we just have only so much time. Oh man. Okay, yeah. Hopefully, this was uh somewhat helpful to everybody. What I'm talking about here. I know I'm jumping back and forth, but this is kind of the basis of what my education comes for, and um, I can only give so much because of awareness, because I have the experience, and I may or may not have the academic side of it because I don't really have like any degrees or certifications in relationships, but I'm getting there, and I have the experience to back it up. So all these things are helpful, so says the Julius. But look this stuff up yourself, check out this article yourself. Um, so quickly in closing, uh once again want to say that consent is a passive, it's always ongoing, there is always revocable consent, always revocable consent. If you don't agree with that, I would question um yourself, and if your partners or whoever you interact with doesn't agree with that, I would question them as well. Because that's kind of nuts. I'll just say that right now. Um, where do your consent norms come from? Because the reason I asked this question is because you see it on the Reddits. As y'all know, I am a Redditor. Uh, y'all saw in the last episode I answered specific questions from Reddit that I got from Reddit, and it drives me crazy because people always ask, is this consensual or is this ethical ethical on there? And it's like, what do you think? What do you think? All right. I went again after this class that I just taught. I had to go back and ask myself, what is my needs wants list? What are my boundaries? I had to reiterate that, and I finally realized that. I have concrete boundaries that I have been shaming and guilting my own self about for so long. And it's like, you know what? I just need this to be a thing. This is gonna be a thing. And um, it's just it's gonna be a thing. All right. That's I'm not going into specifics. This is my list. But I had to just take a minute for myself and be like, you know what? This is gonna be on my list. I'm not gonna feel bad about it, but this is how I'm going to be. And I don't need society dictating that for myself. I don't want to seem like I'm on a high horse or anything with my views on life because I've fucked up a lot. I will say this over and over again. I have fucked up a lot. It has happened and I have done it. I'm telling you right now, almost everything, except for the sexual stuff, because I never really had that motivation. But the other stuff, especially with communication and making assumptions, this is why I always get on everybody and myself. I'm looking at a mirror when I say this. Fuck them assumptions, get them out of here, work on that shit. And it's like you don't need society messing everything up for you. So if you have a consent question, please ask yourself or ask me. You can hit me up on the Instagrams, the the YouTubes, or the emails. Let me know what you questions you have exactly. I know I was very generalized when I was talking about this stuff because conversations and consent, they kind of go one hand in hand, especially if you're like even in a regular, you can be a monogamous vanilla person, have these same issues with communication and consent, and still be over on the other side, the kinky, non-monogamous person, whatever you float your boat in, or if you're just in a dynamic, you have consent and you have communication and you have conversations. Let's work on those people. All right, we'll talk about this some more. Of course, we'll be talking about all that over and over again. Thank you for listening and downloading and watching around the kinky campfire. This is your host, the superb HH Julius Marquis. New episodes on Thursday and uh video episodes on Friday. Usually I was late last week, but we're on time this week. I did it, I corrected it. But please ask me questions in the comments and all those different kinds of things. But we'll catch you next time. Hello.