Super Sex
This is an 18+ podcast!
Supersex Daily is where men and couples come to expand their sex lives — not analyse them to death.
From January 2026, the show shifts into a new daily format: short, punchy episodes every weekday, designed to spark desire, deepen connection, and open doors you may not have realised were there.
We talk about what actually turns people on over time.
How we see ourselves as guys shapes what turns us on.
What keeps long-term sex alive and interesting.
Why fantasy, kink, and curiosity aren’t threats to intimacy — they’re often the key to it.
This isn’t a show about being “better” in bed.
It’s about having more range.
More confidence.
More play.
More depth.
Some days are focused on men and male sexuality.
Some days on couples and shared desire.
Other days we explore non-monogamy, answer real listener questions, or step into the edges most sex podcasts avoid.
If you’ve ever suspected your sex life could be richer, bolder, or more alive than it currently is — this show is for you.
Supersex Daily.
New weekday episodes starting in January 2026.
Super Sex
Episode 58: How Neurodivergent Brains Experience Sex and Love with Kai Schweizer
What if the standard rules of dating and sex were written for someone else’s brain? We sit down with researcher and PhD candidate Kai Schweizer to unpack how neurodivergent people experience desire, consent, and relationships—and why structure and clarity often unlock deeper intimacy. From sensory processing differences to executive function, social style, and learning patterns, we explore how touch, smell, sound, and texture shape pleasure and boundaries. Kai shares why kink can offer safety and ease for autistic folks, how masks and roles reduce social load, and why frameworks like FRIES make consent feel safe, sexy, and specific.
We dig into the double empathy problem and what happens when two communication dialects collide. Expect practical tools for translating across styles: using checklists without killing the mood, choosing verbal cues over guesswork, and deciding—together—whether a moment calls for venting, distraction, or solutions. We also get real about interoception and delayed emotions, why ADHD conflict often needs separation time, and how to support a partner who processes out loud. Along the way we touch on higher rates of gender and sexual diversity among neurodivergent folks, and why late diagnosis can increase vulnerability to coercive dynamics.
One of the most eye-opening parts of the conversation is memory foaming—the tendency to reshape yourself to fit a partner. Kai offers simple practices to keep a solid sense of self: solo hobbies, personal aesthetics, friends beyond the couple bubble, and regular check-ins on what you genuinely like. For educators and curious partners, we make the case for co-designed sex education that includes sensory mapping, explicit consent scripts, and communication models that actually work for different brains.
If this conversation gave you language for your own experience—or helped you better understand someone you love—subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review. Your support helps more people find evidence-based, shame-free conversations about sex, identity, and being gloriously human.
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Welcome back to Super Text, the show where we celebrate the many, many ways human brains and bodies do their things. I'm your host, Jordan, and today we're diving into the beautifully complex world of neurodiversity with the brilliant Kai WhatsApp, researcher and PhD candidate who studies the intersections of neurodivergence, gender, and sexuality.
SPEAKER_00:We talk about what it actually means to be neurodivergent, how different brains experience the world, process sensory input, and navigate relationships, intimacy and design.
SPEAKER_01:Kai unpacks why neurodivergent folks are statistically way more likely to be part of gender and sexual minorities, how social cue differences play out in dating and sex, and why education and support systems often fail to keep up. It's smart, funny, deeply human, and as always, we talk about the stuff that no one else does.
SPEAKER_00:So, let's get into it. Part two of our chat with Kyle Schweitzer, the neurodiversity, sexuality, and relationships.
SPEAKER_01:Welcome to Super Sex, the podcast that dives into sex, relationships, and absolutely everything in between. We're stripping away shame, turning up the truth, and keeping it smart, playful, unapologetically real. So buckle up because it comes to take, the topics are juicy, and the safe work is always more. Let's get into it.
SPEAKER_00:Let's get to it. Hello. Hi guys.
SPEAKER_02:Hey. I just wanted to start off again because I had so much fun the last time.
SPEAKER_00:It was very sexy last time.
SPEAKER_02:Hey. Hey. Hey, super sexes.
unknown:I like that.
SPEAKER_00:Super sexes.
SPEAKER_02:Well, that's our that's our listener group, isn't it? The super sexes. The super sexes like that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Need to make like a volleyball team or like a lawn bowls team or something called the Super Sexes. Maybe do at Lawn Bowls. Oh, I love it. Can you imagine going super sexes to a Lawn Bowl convention and just seeing like all the old grannies like either being super interested or just like falling over with heart attacks? Nonetheless, so I think that's a great fun.
SPEAKER_06:Fucking right.
SPEAKER_02:Oh my gosh. And welcome to my guest.
SPEAKER_03:I'm just thinking about the super sexist Christmas party. Let's get along with it.
SPEAKER_00:It's a perfect moment here and QK. Let's go.
SPEAKER_06:I love it.
SPEAKER_00:That's that's actually really uh that's true though. So with my business with my sex education business, one of the um one of the demographics I'm hitting up is retirement homes. Because yeah, they uh as we talked about in the last episode, costing the Australian taxpayers so much money because all they're doing is boning each other and getting syphilis.
SPEAKER_03:People think they're innocent. I used to work in one. No, you'd open the door and be like, okay, close the door, come back later then.
SPEAKER_06:You would stop being a sexual being when you retire. Is anything you have more time to do to explore?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. That's why I'm hanging on retirement. Let's fucking get to it quick.
SPEAKER_03:Oh my god, your bull life.
SPEAKER_00:Don't shake your head at me, Kate.
SPEAKER_02:I wasn't shaking, I was lowering in despair. But we're not talking about old people today. No, we're not talking about. Can we one day? Yeah. Okay, cool.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah, we should talk about old people one day. Um, but yeah, we're talking about neurodiverse people and neurodiversity in sex.
SPEAKER_03:This is gonna be exciting.
SPEAKER_02:It is. I am excited. And we are joined by Kai.
SPEAKER_00:Kai.
SPEAKER_02:Hurrah.
SPEAKER_00:Hello. The the brain on all matters sex and neurodiversity, probably.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, I spend a lot of time with neurodivergence and neurodiversity.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, love it. Me too.
SPEAKER_00:So one of the things, because my primary job is I work with neurodivergent teens as a sex educator. And one of the big things that I'm constantly getting from people is they don't need to know about sex, they're not gonna have sex, or they shouldn't be having sex. And you're just like, Why? What the fuck? Like, what what?
SPEAKER_03:Why why shouldn't they do the whole like you're gonna have sex, get pregnant, and die kind of thing?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, like if you don't put the fear of God into them, then you're not doing your job properly. But like the amount of times where I've actually had to sit there and like pull out the World Health Organization's human rights sort of bill and just be like, if I don't teach this stuff, I'm contravening that because they've got just as much access and rights to access this information as a neurotypical person. But there's a good reason.
SPEAKER_02:I think people seem to think that first of all, when they think neurodiverse, they automatically go to autism and ADHD, which is fine. But they also have this picture in their mind that this person is like really impaired and they can't be in the world and they need all of this support, which may all be true, but they seem to infantilize people.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um, because a lot of like I used to work um at a oh god, I'm not gonna name it because I'll get in trouble. I used to work at a uh place service that uh provided services for autistic people um in Perth. And the amount of issue that came up uh around sexuality was horrendous. A lot of the incidents, like the the really you know traumatic incidents for the clients was around people not respecting them and not respecting that they were adults with sexual needs.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02:And I was like, well, you you got a human being here, they're gonna have some needs. Why don't we instead of sweeping them under the rug, try and address it?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Maybe while we're here today.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Let's get into it. But yeah, um so there's there's always two chains of thought from what I've seen, and the Kai might be able to jump in on this and talk about the research and whatnot, but people tight tend to think that people in neurodiversity uh actually don't have a sexuality, which is what you're saying, you know, they're they're infants, or they're hypersexual, yeah, especially in the terms of like Down syndrome people. They tend to think that they are just so hypersexual and all they want to do is shag. That might be true for some of them.
SPEAKER_03:I think they're good on them.
SPEAKER_00:But for the most parts, what I've been able to see from my practice is that it's not about the fact that they're hypersexual, it's you know that draw control model, um, the accelerators brakes. Emily Nagowski talks about it quite well. People in neurodiversity just don't recognise how to apply the brakes and in what social situations the brakes should be applied. That's why they seem to be a little bit more hypersexual. And talking to the talking to the teens that I do, that's what they sort of come al come across with, you know, okay, this issue happened. Why did that happen? I I didn't know it was wrong. And when you dig down into it, it's because they didn't know that it was wrong because the social cues weren't necessarily there. So whereas we pick up on that and we apply outbreaks instantly, you know. Well, not in some time. Sometimes not.
SPEAKER_02:We're not perfect. No, okay, and I just like, oh do we? Okay, okay.
SPEAKER_03:But yeah. You're talking to the one that did the ADHD test in the middle of class because she got sidetracked, sidewest.
SPEAKER_00:And you came out as ADHD, didn't we didn't you? Yeah. I think we both did.
SPEAKER_03:No, we didn't.
SPEAKER_00:So there's a story there, tell it tell us.
SPEAKER_03:The teacher was literally just talking about the ADHD test and Jonathan and I looked at each other. And instead of waiting like for a break time, we'd straight on ignored everything else that was being said for this session, and we're both there doing the test. We looked at each other and we're both like, we're both ADHD.
SPEAKER_02:Meanwhile, Matt, the lecturer, is just looking at us, just going, Oh, now that I know who is the lecturer, that would be so funny. And we're both like, okay. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:It's just like this slow shake and the eye roll and just sort of test was to see who would do the test, and out of everybody that was in the class, everyone was still listening, but we were not. Yeah, yeah, of course.
SPEAKER_04:In good results.
SPEAKER_02:Typical, typical. This is how we're friends. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I love it. So here's another stat that I came up with. Well, I didn't come up with.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, you didn't? You just didn't make anything.
SPEAKER_00:You know, I am in the habit of creating stats and just talking about them just to see which one lats. Um, but this one I sort of talk to my staff quite a bit about. Um because working with neurodiverse kids, we've got a lot of either gender-diverse or sexually diverse kids as well. But depending on what research you you read, it's between five to eight times more likely to be gender or sexually diverse if you have neurodivergence than regular. Um say regular.
SPEAKER_02:It's like their brains don't fit in the box or something, and they just want to push boundaries and you know, like, don't put me into this box.
SPEAKER_00:I know. Well what what do you think is going on there? Like obviously I've got my thoughts on that, but why why are neurodivergent people so much um more predisposed to becoming trans or becoming sexually diverse?
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, I think um I think probably like a good place to start is just uh maybe a a definition of what neurodivergent means, because I think people use the term uh to mean a lot of different things now. Yeah. Um to me, at least in the papers I've written, um, neurodivergent is when someone has neurocognitive functioning that differs from the majority.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:So that will mean something different in different cultures and different places. Um but uh the paper that we wrote uh has just been cited five million times for the definition because of the fact that we didn't include in our examples just autism and ADHD. Um we included let's see, I wrote it down. Uh autism, ADHD, giftedness, dyslexia, dyscalculia, dyspraxia, intellectual disability, OCD, schizophrenia, and Tourette syndrome, as examples.
SPEAKER_05:Yes.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah. Um, so it's a very broad range of things. But I think when we talk to the stats, the stats usually are only autism and ADHD. So that's something to keep in mind, is we don't really know when it comes to the other things. Yeah. Um but like neurodivergence uh generally like across all the different like categories beneath that is kind of like four key traits that are the things that we're talking about, which is like the sensory processing differences, the executive function differences, the differences in like socializing style, and the differences in thinking and learning style. Uh, and that's where it's different from neurotypical people. Um, and I think like the neurodiversity movement has kind of challenged the idea that these are differences that are disorder or that there is something wrong with someone, and rather that they are literally just the diversity of brains in the population and how those brains work. Um, so we have, you know, the term neurodivergent to mean the difference, and neurotypical to mean the majority group. Um, and kind of both those sit underneath neurodiversity, which is like everyone, all the different human brains and ways of being, um, is neurodiversity.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Um, I reckon why don't we start then with like what like the you just said four differences. So let's look at those in terms of like sex and sexuality, right? So like sensory processing, what like what does that mean if you're engaging in sexual activity or you know, you want to with someone? Like, is that like your brain will experience things differently, your body will experience things differently? Is that like sort of where we're heading with that?
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, I guess like if you think about you know the five senses, like taste, touch, smell, etc. All those are involved in sex, aren't they? Pretty much.
SPEAKER_00:Oh yeah. Unless you want to take it away, and that's really kinky.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, it's a very multi-sensory experience. I love not seeing. Neurodivergent people tend to have differences in how they process senses. So uh maybe hypersensitivity or hyposensitivity. So sounds might be louder or perceived as louder, and um smells might be more intense. Um textures and different sensations of touch might be aversive or good. Um, and so there's a lot of like interesting challenges and potential in that for around sex. So some people find like wet and sticky textures and experiences very aversive, which makes some kinds of sex very uncomfortable and difficult. Um and then other people, you know, they've got that hypersensitivity to to touch or certain sensations, but that can be harnessed for pleasure. So um, you know, if someone's like very sensitive to touch, then they might be a big fan of tickling or like tactile play of some kind. Um, but I think part of the challenge is like understanding your own profile in terms of how you experience the world with senses, um, and then being able to kind of tweak the way that you engage in sex in a way that harnesses the things that work for you and doesn't enforce the things that don't. Like so much of the way that people engage in sex is kind of like following the usual social script, and there's just an expected way to do things. And you know, there's kind of that quotal imperative of like sex will involve penetration and it will involve kissing and it will involve a certain set of things in a certain order. And that's not always gonna work for everybody, uh, just generally, but particularly if there's certain like sensory differences at play that make that not ideal, yeah. Like both in terms of being distressing and also in terms of not being as pleasurable as it could be on the other side of that spectrum.
SPEAKER_00:And that's I think why you see a lot of um people with autism, especially, because they tend to fall on that sensory scale a lot a lot higher. Um, but they engage in king practices a lot more as well, a lot of impact stuff, um, a lot of piercing stuff, there's a lot of cutting within that, and a lot of size play stuff as well, which is interesting, but it's all that hyposensitivity. And like a lot of people sit there and go, like, what does that mean? But I'll sort of give you guys an idea of what it looks like in a sort of regular real-world scenario. Um, I was working with a young um autistic team who loved the feeling of pressure on his body. Now, he couldn't give himself enough pressure, or we couldn't give him enough pressure within the setting that we were, like it just legally wasn't allowed. So he found a meter and a half high wall and would jump flat body straight onto the sand below him to feel that impact and pressure. Wow. So, but that was really soothing and calming for him. Whereas, you know, and people sort of who who do have that hypersensitivity can move into so sort of king practices because they need a massive amount of pressure in order to feel a little bit. Yeah, that makes sense.
SPEAKER_06:So yeah, it's famously actually uh the deep pressure is a fun one. Um, one of the most like well-known autistic people in the world uh is a woman named Temple Grandin who works in like animal handling and like animal husbandry and that kind of stuff. Um, and she's kind of like a well-known autistic person who uh designed for herself what she called a hug machine. And so it's a machine that like presses in on you from all sides and gives you deep pressure. Um and she also designed an equivalent one for cows, really, which helps it's kind of horrific, but like it helps keep them calm when they're going to the abattoir. Um but it came from her design for herself for um the deep pressure.
SPEAKER_05:Wow.
SPEAKER_06:Uh and that people kind of you see memes that make fun of this idea of the hug machine, because you can buy them for people still, um like on Amazon now, but like uh they are very comforting for a lot of people to have that deep pressure. Um and like that can manifest in relationships too, that people can often be desiring that like deep pressure and hugs and stuff, but that might not always be like in line with what their partner wants as well. Um things like uh a lot of people have weighted blankets.
SPEAKER_03:I was gonna say weighted blankets, I've got one. I love my weighted blanket.
SPEAKER_06:Weighted blankets in the bedroom could be fun, you know?
SPEAKER_03:Um no, I can't even move, mine's so heavy, I'm just like laying there.
SPEAKER_06:A lot of people find that like the the sensation of the deep pressure from things like rope can be good as well. Yeah. Um yeah, it's definitely true, at least in the research around autistic people, that like kink is a very common practice uh at a much higher rate than in the general population. In particular, um they did a study at like a pup play conference, and they found that 50% of people reported being autistic who were there.
SPEAKER_02:Amazing.
SPEAKER_06:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Dive into that a little bit more for uh because d do you know when when you see phenomena like that and you hear something, immediately your brain is going, but why?
SPEAKER_02:Why? First of all, for the listeners who don't know, what's pot play?
SPEAKER_06:Put play is uh like uh a kink in which people engage in behaving like and dressing like usually dogs. You know, like um pet play more broadly is kind of like owner and pet uh dynamics. Um but uh putt play is one of the more popular ones, and it can involve things like uh you know, wearing a collar, uh a leash, having like a tail. Um, often there's like a hood that people wear that makes their face look more like a dog.
SPEAKER_02:Um they perform tricks sometimes.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, can be kind of like obedience, domination, submission stuff involved in that.
SPEAKER_00:I'd be a shit pop. I don't listen to anybody.
SPEAKER_02:I think we could all definitely agree that you would be a shit pop.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, it's um there's a couple of theories about why it might be more popular in autistic people. Um, you know, you are following instructions potentially rather than needing to navigate all the complicated dynamics of like negotiating and communication.
SPEAKER_02:Um you could just literally switch your brain off and just be like, this person's gonna tell me exactly what to do.
SPEAKER_06:Yep. Um the fact that it can involve wearing some kind of like face covering means that you don't need to mask uh and like mimic neurotypical facial expressions in a sexual context. Like famously, like uh autistic people often, when they are the most aroused, look to other people the least aroused because they're not behaving in the way that a neurotypical person behaves in a sexual context. Like they call it like the idea of resting bitch face, essentially resting autistic face is a very blank expression that can look uh not very inviting. Like disengaged. Body language doesn't always come naturally to autistic people. Like I don't sit and behave in ways that make sense to people for what is happening. Like I learned manually, like that when you're talking to someone, you need to kind of like angle your body towards them. Um, and all that was stuff that I learned from reading it, not from just like inherently knowing it in the way that other people seem to know. Um, and so you know, when you are engaging in a sexual context, there are ways that your face and your body are supposed to, you know, supposed in air quotes, to be. Uh and those things are all manually done as a form of masking when they're done by an autistic person often. So it's taking context, yeah, you're taking your brain power away from being present in the experience when you're doing all that. So something like pub play, where there's a very clear idea of how to behave, and that that behavior doesn't need to fit the neurotypical way of being in a human manner, and you're just like um you know, you're following instructions, you don't have to do any facial expressions, your body language is a very clear set of like agreed upon ways of being, like you wag your tail, you move your your hands. Um, is a lot less to think about, and that seems to be part of the escape of it for people. Like having to mimic and mask to look like normal quote unquote human behavior is not a thing you have to do anymore because you're you have a very clear idea of how to behave in that setting. Everything with behaving as a human being is uh is work all the time for a lot of autistic people, because if they don't mask, if we don't mask, people find us very off-putting or hard to understand. So it's kind of like a behavior you do to make other people understand you more.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Because there's there's one young person I worked with, and they basically came to me and we were talking about initiating sort of sexual um moments, and they said I need a checklist. And I'm like, A checklist? Like, what do you mean? Like, well, when I'm in these situations, I'm mentally running through my checklist. And at that point, I was like, oh my god, like that would be purely exhausting. And I said, Is that something that you na like will learn to naturally just come to and be able to read? And they're like, No, no, I'll get always run through my checklist. And I was like, wow.
SPEAKER_06:There is a lot of neurodivergent people, especially autistic people, who are so petrified of accidentally causing harm because they miss the like small cues in someone else's behavior. Like, you know, I ideally consent should be verbal, a very clear yes no. Um, but a lot of the time in practice, people engage in initiation and like consent through the way that they behave in their body language and their facial expressions. And uh often for neurodivergent people, those are very hard to read and make sense of. So there is often like this fear that someone will miss the cues and proceed in a way that's not consensual. And so there's a lot of autistic people I've met who simply just have written off ever having sex because they're like, I would rather never do it at all than accidentally assault somebody. Um, and so, like, you know, the sex education around how to navigate those situations, not in a way to like read the cues better necessarily, but just how to adapt and accommodate the differences in styles is important. I think uh like one of the foundational ideas in the neurodiversity movement is this thing called the double empathy problem, which is the theory that it's not actually that neurodivergent people um are have like deficits in the communication skills. We actually can communicate really well with each other. We can communicate with body language and facial expressions in a way that makes sense to other neurodivergent people, but just not neurotypical people. And neurotypical people can communicate really well with each other, but not neurodivergent people. And the argument is rather than being one group is doing it wrong, it's more accurate to say that we're essentially speaking two different languages. And so it's that cross-cultural communication that is difficult because neither group knows how to communicate with the other one. And so, you know, a lot of that work to do that um is about learning how to speak the other language, or uh ideally for neurotypical people to better be able to communicate with neurodivergent people, because it's a bit easier that way around. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's that's really interesting that you said that because I was thinking back to and framed it around consent as well, because I was thinking back to some of the lessons around consent that I've actually given. And it's very true that when you are teaching a neurotypical cohort about consent, you teach it in a very, very different way than you teach neurodivergent teens because they do approach consent in two completely different ways. And when I'm talking to neurotypical kids or teens, we are looking at those minute cues, you know. We're starting to look at like pupil dilation, we're looking at like the eyes wide, eyes closed, body language, that sort of stuff. But then when we're starting to talk about neurodiversity and neurodivergent teens, they're wanting firstly that sort of checklist that we're talking about, but more the verbal cues, and they need that explicit verbal because they are absolutely petrified of overstepping that boundary and they need to hear it explicitly. Yes, this is what we're doing. And then, like frameworks like that Fry's model, you know, freely, freely given, reversible, informed, enthusiastic specific work really, really well for neurodivergent folks because they sit there and go, Okay, yep, I've got all of that. Let's go ahead.
SPEAKER_06:I think some people think that that makes it less sexy to be that more like rigid and structured way, but like the structured ways of understanding are ways that make sense to neurodivergent brains. I think the Fry's model is a really good one. Like in my own relationship, like the Fry's model is so memorized by everyone involved that like we can literally just like shorthand being like, I don't know, like what you said isn't very S. Can you be more specific? Yeah, like the it becomes like the shared language to be able to communicate about it between everyone instead of being just a checklist in my head, you know.
SPEAKER_02:Um but I wonder if like this is just off slightly off topic, but you said like you you teach neurotypical teens differently to neurodivergent teens. Would that not then create a problem if they wanted to?
SPEAKER_00:Well, you are teaching, I I say that, but you are you are teaching I teach our fries model to both.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But with the neurotypical teens, they understand that, but they will rely less on that framework in intimate situations. Yeah, okay. They'll start picking up on more of body language cues, whereas neurodivergent um teens will more likely fall back to that framework. So I more emphasize that within um it's the same stuff, just different emphasis, same stuff, just different emphasis and different amount of time applied to work. Communicating to each group in more of their own language.
SPEAKER_06:Yep. Crossing the double empathy problem.
SPEAKER_00:Weird, but yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_02:I have another question about the so the sensory stuff. When when we were talking about like um different sensory sensations and how like certain things can feel really icky. Um, I wonder how that translates to uh like sexual health practices, like using condoms, using dental dams, like is there ever, you know, like how some some people will use like, oh, it doesn't feel good as an excuse not to wear a condom. Um, but is there, you know, like, oh it hurts. But could that actually possibly be a real thing? And like for some people, not just an excuse, and then how would you, you know, get past that?
SPEAKER_06:This is super anecdotal, but something I've noticed, not evidence based in the research, is that it seems like neurodivergent people are more likely to have a latex allergy.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:Just just everyone around me I know who is neurodivergent seems to also be allergic to latex like me. Which is neat because it means that like if you are having sex with other neurodivergent people, they tend to have the right kind of condoms on them. Yeah. Uh for both of them. But like yeah, I think there is validity in the fact that certain components of like sexual health protection, you know, like barrier methods might feel genuinely not good for people. Like the um the slightest, subtlest things in texture can be really noticeable. Like uh in the world of like some of my work around eating disorders, like people who have uh very strong sensory sensitivities to taste can tell the difference between two identical meals, but one was cooked in butter and one was cooked in oil, or if it was cooked in oil of olive oil or canola oil. Like their ability to taste the difference in things is really acute. My partner has a the sensitivity enough to tell which side of the river the water is from that he's drinking. Wow. Like is it north of the river or is it south of the river? And like because the minerals and things in the water taste different.
SPEAKER_00:No way. That is fucking superpower shit.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, like um the like the sensitivity to smell that some people have is just astronomically higher, that it's kind of like can both be debilitating and a bit of a superpower.
SPEAKER_02:I was gonna ask about the debilitating factor, like and how that would go into the, you know, like our natural sort of disgust response around other people's bodies. Like that could really get in the way if like if certain smells you were so sensitive to them, like even just someone's BO, and you're like, nope, you need to have a full body wash in this particular soap before we get busy.
SPEAKER_06:Yep, definitely. Like uh navigating those conversations is hard, but like yeah, there's often like specific conditions that are needed for sex to happen for people. Um I think like there's a lot of autistic people who are interested in kink but not sex, or they're interested in a very smaller set of activities. Um like neurodivergent people tend to have uh just different desires in some ways and different ways of communicating in relationships. I um recently went down a deep dive and made an Instagram post about ADHD and relationships that they've established that uh the conflict resolution style that works for people with ADHD is actually different than the one that's considered to be the best one for neurotypical people. And like the way of addressing and managing conflict in a relationship is it's better to use one of the styles that's classed as like unhelpful in neurotypical people. Okay. Which one is that? Yeah, separation style. So like there's a couple of different styles.
SPEAKER_03:Well, that's why like the whole like ignoring you for two weeks works for me.
SPEAKER_02:Like you the need to to the need to walk away and decompress and like not engage is really like that's that's allowing someone to then regulate themselves so they can come back as a functioning human. And like often neurotypical people want to have it out then and resolve it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I've got a few people in situations like this in in my work.
SPEAKER_00:That's me.
SPEAKER_01:Another thing. No, we didn't. Like as soon as you said that, I'm sitting there going, fuck, that's actually me. Like, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:My wife and I sort of we we've never had a fight, but we get a little bit edgy with each other. Um I'm like, okay, I just need to step away and just go and calm down right now.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:That's my moment. Emotional processing can take a bit longer in some people who are neurodivergent, like to one of the interesting bits with sensory processing is that a component of that relates to emotions. Yeah. So um this thing that is uh I could spend six hours on just this one thing, but it's called interoception, which is like our ability to um understand and interpret internal body cues. So neurodivergent people tend to struggle with knowing when we need to pee, when we need to drink water because we're thirsty, when we're hungry. Like all those internal systems, uh, the the ability to read them are often either like heightened or weaker than average, and they can be like a combination of that. Um, but interoception is very related as well to the ability to like understand and name our emotions because emotions happen from inside of us. Yeah, so like not just in our brain, but also the body sensations that go with those. So, like so.
SPEAKER_02:If you have a feeling in the pit of your stomach, that would take you some time to actually work out what that is. Like, am I hungry? Am I scared? Yep, am I excited?
SPEAKER_06:So, you know, like the most people I think they go, My heart's racing, and I'm anxious. Instead, it's like, my heart's racing. What why is it doing that? What does that mean? If you notice it at all. Like it used to infuriate me when I was younger in therapy, being asked, like, well, how does that feel in your body? I'm like, I don't fucking know. I'm not connected to my body, I don't hear anything from in there, you know? Um, but that uh emotional processing being like a slower process that takes a lot of work means that in the moment in an in a conflict, like it can be harder to make sense of all of the stuff going on inside of you. Um, and sometimes that can mean like the emotional flooding happens faster. And once someone is like flooded, it's very hard to engage in like productive conflict. People tend to shut down. And like, you know, the the Gottman style model of like the they call it like the four horsemen of the relationship apocalypse. One of them is stonewalling, which often gets confused with shutting down in a in in the neurodivergent context. There's a difference between like intentionally silent treatmenting someone and being so like emotionally overstimulated that you need time to sit and process before returning to the that's my favourite in stonewalling.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Wow. It's it's fascinating to think that there are basically two different types of people walking through this world and mingling together every single day. And we talk, we do things, we exist in very different ways. Like while you were talking there about the emotional delays, I've seen that where, let's say on a Wednesday, there's been a massive escalation at a school, and there's been an autistic kid witnessing that, and during the whole escalation, which is deeply frightening to a neurotypical person, the autistic child is blank face, just looking at it, not responding at all. The following day at the exact same time, so 24 hours later, there is a massive overwhelming emotional reaction from that autistic child. And that's it sometimes takes up to 24 hours for those emotions to be actually felt and recognized and understood. And quite often you sit there, especially as a teacher, and you're like, What the hell is going on? Oh, okay. So this is because of what happened yesterday, not anything that's actually triggered now.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And yeah, just a very different way of interpreting and processing information in the world, right?
SPEAKER_00:Very different.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And how you feel it as well.
SPEAKER_06:One of the things that I've spent a lot of time on this year is like I uh I started a little, very small, small business. Um, it's called neuroaffirming tutoring. So I don't teach students their subject, I teach neurodivergent students how to learn in a way that works for their brain. Uh and that sometimes is like their school studies or their union.
SPEAKER_03:Well, you and I was at school.
SPEAKER_06:Sometimes it's also their job or it's their life issues they're having, because I'm just like trying to learn about how people process information in different ways. Um, and one thing that's really noticeable in the research and in the students that I work with is when it comes to ADHD, going straight from a thought in your brain to writing it on a page is very hard to do. There is a mid and there's a middle step. Um, most people with ADHD seem to be more verbal processors. Like if you ask someone the questions for the assessment out loud, a lot of people with ADHD can very clearly articulate out loud the response. But if the same thing is written on a page and they need to write the response on the page, you won't get the same quality of response because it's just a different way of thinking and processing information. And that goes for the emotional stuff too, that like having the chance to talk it out loud and make sense of it helps unspool it from being a mess in the brain.
SPEAKER_03:Did you mark my assignments? Because that's every feedback. Like, I know my shit, I just don't know how to put it on paper.
SPEAKER_06:So what I do with a lot of my students to to like overcome the challenge of it being a written assessment is like we can sit on a Zoom call and a transcript will be developed from what they're saying. So you have kind of a draft of their assessment in written form, but they were able to verbally process it and then they can just tweak and edit it and fix it up from there. Um but like I think how that can present in relationships is like wanting to verbally process a lot of the stuff that's happening, and that's not always something that the other person or people involved feel like is beneficial to them in reverse.
SPEAKER_02:Um it's almost like tr then trying to teach the other person that they just need to hold space and almost like work together and say, okay, I'm just gonna sit with you, even though I'm not ready for this, you can talk this out with me. Yeah. As long as it's safe for them.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah. It's just yapping. Like doesn't always need a response. No, it doesn't need a fix. Um, you know, it's not problem solving, it's kind of just venting. Having a secondary human being to talk to. It could be a pet practically, it just needs to be like there's a sense of someone is receiving the information.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that is so hard for men to do, males to do, to just sit there for well for the majority of males, let's say. But firstly, to listen, but to listen in silence without offering feedback and without actually wanting to help. And without solutions, so not wanting to help, but without actually moving to help. Like, because you can just be sitting there like wanting to help the whole time, but yeah, that person. Zip your lip mate. Yeah. Shut the fuck up, just sit there, let me vent.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But guys don't do that too well. No, for the most part.
SPEAKER_06:No. My favorite model for that is um they call it the triforce of communication, which is like the three things people are usually trying to get out of any conversation they're in. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um venting, yeah, distraction, solution. Yes.
SPEAKER_06:And that most of the time, people tend to jump to solution, particularly men. Yeah, I'm very prone to it where I'm like, okay, uh, you know, my background in like youth work and social work was like, I'm not a psychologist, I'm not holding the space for the emotions in the same way. My job is to fix the material problem. Yeah. Like, hold space while doing that. But like, if someone's experiencing homelessness, they need a house. They don't need me to just like sit and listen to how hard it is to not have the house. That's important too. But the solution underlying that is they need accommodation. And so my brain is kind of wired from that to always be trying to fix anything that's making someone distressed. Because what will help in the long term is like I need to fix the thing that's causing the distress. Uh, and so I often come into relationships being like, oh, I can fix this, I can fix that.
SPEAKER_03:And then look, I'm often like, Oh, fix him.
SPEAKER_06:They're like, I just want to vent, please stop. So, like, you know, if you like the because the the triforce is like, you know, there's one, two, and three. Uh, you can kind of in a relationship end up in the shorthand of like just asking directly. And it's particularly useful when the person's neurodivergent and it's not clear what someone wants. It's usually never clear what someone wants unless you ask them, but somehow some neurotypical people seem to be able to just interpret which one uh to be like, which one do you want? One, two, or three, or like, are you looking for solutions or just want me to listen? Or like directly asking for that, so that then every conversation you have, people are actually meaningfully getting out of it what they want to be getting out of it.
SPEAKER_02:I can't tell you how often I have this conversation with people in my job. Is like, okay, but it sounds like all you're trying to do is fix this person's problem. What do you think that they actually want when they come to you? And they're like, what do you mean?
SPEAKER_06:The other one that I think about a lot and comes up a lot in my life is um there's two different styles of responding to like a personal story from someone. Uh, we call them reciprocal sharing and reflective holding. Recep like reflective holding is kind of like that, must have been hard. Like it's it's a you're not sharing anything back, you're just like holding space for that story, is kind of more what psychologists are taught to do is like don't share your personal stuff back, just hold the space and like validate the feeling. Reciprocal sharing is more of a let me share a personal story back to indicate that I can empathize with your experience.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:Neurotypical people on average tend to prefer the holding, and neurodivergent people tend to prefer the reciprocal sharing. So if someone is neurodivergent and they're telling us like a personal story and someone goes, That must be hard, doesn't feel to some neurodivergent people like empathy is actually coming back because it's like there's nothing personal to connect to there.
SPEAKER_02:And then in the opposite hand. But then people are sharing and people are like, Yeah, and I did this, and they're like, it feels like being like one-uped or moving away.
SPEAKER_06:So, like if you're in a group of people who are neurodivergent, they'll all be like sharing the story back to like validate the experience, and that connects. Like, that's the that's the language style that works. Whereas, you know, if you're a neurodivergent person and you're talking to a neurotypical person and they tell you how hard their day was and you tell about yours back, sometimes the reaction you receive is not the intended one of like connection. It's more of like a you're not listening to me. And so there's this like it's one of those like language and style differences that can be challenging. It's also challenging if you're working in like a therapeutic context and you're a neurodivergent therapist, that you're trained not to share back. But if your client's neurodivergent, sometimes what's most meaningful is to share back. Yeah. And so, like, my I I sought out for myself a therapist who is neurodivergent and who often will be like, Yeah, I'm on that medication too. It works for me. And that's kind of what I need to hear is like someone else I know is on it and it's gonna be okay, you know. That can be a lot more meaningful. I find the same thing is true with like queer folks, just sometimes what you need is not someone to say, yeah, it is hard that you're going through that. It's more of a, it is hard that you're going through that, and I've been through it too, and I've survived, because then you know it's possible. Um, it's just a different way of connecting with another person. But it can be, you know, the the world is built around the idea of being neurotypical, and the style that is thought of as being the correct one is the neurotypical way as a result of that. So uh neurodivergent people often, while genuinely and meaningfully trying to connect with someone else, often experience this rejection as a result of that because of the style in which they communicate. And that constant and repeated rejection can definitely become internalized into feeling like something is wrong with you. And that, you know, can make relationships really complicated.
SPEAKER_00:That means for me, what I'm hearing in that is I'm just bringing it straight back to my context, and all I'm thinking about is we need more neurodivergent voices in RSE. Because when I go out, and from my neurotypical perspective, I'm I'm thinking on teaching kids the right ways in order to approach problems within relationships, but now clearly that might not even apply for them, or actually might even make things harder for a neurodivergent bunch of kids to be able to do that. So we need like far more neurodivergent voices within the RSE space and actually like co-designing programs. Fuck.
SPEAKER_02:I've just I've seen just Jordan's mind the whole time that you were talking, kind of side-eyeing over to where Jordan's sitting in this epiphanies, it's epiphany clusters.
SPEAKER_01:I can imagine it's like what I look for in a kid. It's like that aha moment. Yeah, you just had many several of them.
SPEAKER_06:Like uh, you know, I've I have a master of sexology and I didn't learn in that a lot about neurodivergent sexuality and relationships. I don't think I learned any, if I remember correctly. No, um, but like, you know, even with a master of sexology, I've encountered like so many challenges in my own relationships because there's just no framework upon which for me to make sense of things often. Like I have the frameworks that are existing in sexology, but they don't always fit onto my own life. Um and like earlier this year, uh a book came out that I literally like had in my calendar when it came out so I could buy it, because it was uh a book by a very respected researcher and like author that was focused on um how to live a good neurodivergent life, particularly an autistic life. And there was a chapter that was like advertised in advance was going to be about sex and relationships, and it blew my mind. I was just so excited. What is this book? Who wrote it? Uh it's Unmasking for Life by Dr. Devin Price. So the first one that's on the list. The first one was about what autism actually looks like and means beyond what the criteria in the DSM say, because it it's a lot more than what the criteria says. And the criteria are not based off of what the average actual person who is autistic looks like. It's based off of the uh idea of what it looks like in a young white boy. And if you are diagnosed later, the presentation you're gonna come with is very different than someone diagnosed very young. Like the way that you learn to adapt without knowing that about yourself changes how you present in the world and changes how you feel about yourself. That like if you don't know you're autistic, but your whole life you've experienced this chronic rejection, then you just think something is wrong with you. And how does that make you live your life? Um traumatized.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it lends itself to mental health issues.
SPEAKER_06:And like what we find is that like later diagnosed people um who are neurodivergent, particularly autism and ADHD, are very prone to being in like abusive and unhealthy relationships. Uh, and that's kind of true of anyone who has this like deep feeling of defectiveness. It's like you tend to not uh be in relationships with people who deserve you because you don't think you deserve that. Yep.
SPEAKER_02:Um it leaves people so vulnerable. And I'm glad that we uh this is definitely one of the points that I wanted to get to today because I remember working with some autistic um women years ago, and they were just they were in the most hectic abusive relationships, and it took a lot of work to I guess uh bring them to the understanding that this wasn't love, and you know, like yes, I know that he just rocks up whenever and has sex with you, and that's great that you feel wanted, but where is the communication? Like, where are the boundaries? Like, where how do you feel about yourself? Yeah, and it was and it was just sort of like, well, I don't know what you mean. Like the script, my social script says A, B, and C, and this is what is happening. So is this not correct?
SPEAKER_06:And it comes back to that like sensory processing and interoception stuff that like, how do you recognize in yourself when your boundaries are being crossed, when you have that like difficulty with listening to your own feelings and cues? It can be a lot harder to identify that something is not good or is not right, and then it's also that chronic invalidation of like the world might be too loud, but people are constantly telling you it's not that loud. So you learn to not trust your own feelings, yeah. And that leaves you vulnerable as well. That if you're being gaslit in a relationship, you're less likely to notice that or you're more likely to not trust yourself.
SPEAKER_02:You're just gonna assume that it's because you're wrong and this person obviously knows more.
SPEAKER_00:And that's exactly why a lot of my neurodiverse teens and clients are coming to me saying, Teach me the fucking red flags. I want to know the red flags. Whereas like neurotypical people, I'm teaching the green flags as well, but the neurodiverse people want the red flags because they want to be able to sit there and look for them specifically and be like, okay, that's my point of exit.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that's important. I was colored blind.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah. It's a it's a real difficulty. Um, I think like one thing we find is that people who are diagnosed later in life, especially women, tend to have learned how to cope with being undiagnosed in the world and being neurodivergent by being extremely passive and agreeable and seeing themselves as objects of desire rather than sexual beings. So, like if you experience constant rejection in every interaction all the time, how you avoid that constant rejection is you adapt. And you adapt by just agreeing to things all the time so that you don't create conflict. Yeah. And you adapt by being what other people want you to be so that you don't experience rejection.
SPEAKER_02:And so that means fight or flight response is fawning.
SPEAKER_06:Yes, and you become just a fauner all the time. And so assertiveness is a big part of having a healthy relationship, is being able to say, No, I'm not okay with that. Yeah, or no, I don't want to have sex. But if you've spent your whole life learning that doing that is going to lead to these really intense feelings of rejection and that like something is fundamentally wrong with you, then you learn not to do that. Uh, and that leads to, you know, lots of unhealthy relationships, potential crossing of boundaries and consent. And uh a lot of the neurodivergent people that I work with, it's like, how do we manually kind of retroactively learn where your boundaries are and that it's okay to assert them? That doesn't come naturally and it feels like a threat to do it, but like through the practice of doing it enough. Um the the thing that I like I send to a lot of people at the moment as well is this like list in this book that I've mentioned. And it's a list of problems that can occur and like issues in autistic relationships that are common and normal and not signs of abuse. And I return to it all the time for myself too, because like my inability to recognize when something is uh just a conflict that is a normal part of a relationship versus it's dangerous and unhealthy, and I need to get out. Like the distinction between that is very hard for me to make sense of and process and process fast enough. Yeah. Uh so being able to go, nope, this is normal and common, it's on paper, it's there, cool, that's fine, that's normal. Um, having it like external to me is helpful because it's a bit like you know, with interoception being weaker with things like hunger, we can't tend to use intuitive eating with neurodivergent people because it does it doesn't work very well. You need to have like external timers and things to remind you to eat rather than relying on the hunger cues. Similarly, I think when it comes to like, am I safe? Sometimes you need that checklist or that something external to come to because like it's harder to rely on those internal cues in the same way.
SPEAKER_00:It's almost almost like you're ex explaining like the difference between like not even the difference, but maybe having like an exoskeleton of resources to just be able to pick up whenever you need to be able to like strengthen your social capabilities.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, I think um the one one of the things that I learned this year that was just so fundamentally important to me was um about this concept that we call memory foaming. Memory foam is in like the pillows, yeah. How they like they change their shape to fit your head. Uh compared to like the idea of enmeshment in relationships that fits with neurotypical people, memory foaming is something that we seem to see in autistic people and potentially in ADHD as well. Where it's not just like you are enmeshed with that person, it's like you are fundamentally changing your shape to fit with them. You are changing yourself as a person to make sure you fit with that relationship.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:Where, like, if they like something, you like that thing. If they don't like it, then you don't like it. Um and it's like, you know, it's a very common experience that happens uh where you no longer have a self. Like if you imagine like the two circles of two people, enmeshment is kind of like a very high level of overlap between the circles, and memory foaming can feel like it's just one circle then. Um, because you've you've fundamentally like attach yourself to that person or people in a way where there is no self anymore. You've just become them.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And if you've attached to someone who's got a whole heap of red flags and you haven't been taught about those red flags, then suddenly that's very problematic.
SPEAKER_06:And if you are uh have that relationship end or you leave it and you are a circle, then it's like you fundamentally ripping yourself apart. Um, you're not just like no longer with somebody, you are having this like complete fragmenting of who you are as a person in a way that leaves you lost. Like some autistic people I've met, like you see them early in their relationship, their dress sense changes to match their partner. And like they change how they eat and how they behave. Because often there's like this long history of rejection, and you've finally found someone who seems to like you for you, but then in order to maintain that relationship, there's like this subconscious uh tweaks to yourself to fit that happen over time until sometimes you don't even recognize yourself anymore. And it's like avoiding conflict by being sameness. Um because like for a lot of us, the idea of healthy conflict doesn't feel like a thing that can exist. The idea that conflict can be healthy is often very strange to us. Um and yeah, it's just like the more that I have read about this, the more I'm like, oh dear. Yeah, like I I I noticed I noticed the pattern in my own relationships of being like, oh no. Like I'd often spoken before to people about how it seemed like my gender expression was influenced by who I was dating, and I hadn't really thought about that that much more deeply. Where I was like, I think maybe just with some people I feel more comfortable, but then I went, Oh, it matches who I'm with a little bit too much.
SPEAKER_02:Like, um So when we've like over the years that I've known you and I've seen the the shifts in presentation, that has been more aligned with who you're dating. I think so.
SPEAKER_03:Oh wow, and when you've been talking, I'm like that ex and that ex and that yeah.
SPEAKER_06:The idea of like uh how to have a healthy relationship uh doesn't always come naturally, I think. And um the the the way that we can kind of accidentally meld ourselves with the person we're with and make them a fundamental part of us. It's not like I feel like it's not the same pattern as like what we would think of as being like typical abuse where you're cut off from your friends. But if your friends aren't your partner's friends, then you might kind of cut them off just by accident, you know? It's not like someone's intentionally becoming uh one person with the other person there with other people, but like it's just this subconscious phenomenon where like enmeshment becomes so common. Uh, but it's like this extra step above that that then means breakups become really hard. Like my last breakup that I had, I was definitely very memory foamed in that one. Um, too, too much. And I I like did not know who I was anymore right afterwards. I was like, I do not know what I like and don't like, I don't know like anything about myself anymore because I've lost track of who I am in becoming more and more like this other person. Uh, and I had to re-figure it all out. And then in my current relationship, I was like a year into dating when I found this book and read this thing and was like, um I need to correct that immediately because I'm definitely doing that again. Uh, and so I started, you know, kind of sitting and intentionally spending time on like, well, what are the things that I know are my interests that are not shared interests? I need to foster those more now. I need to like sit and think about what is my style and what I the way that I like to dress. Uh is it like my partner or not, and in what ways? And how do I kind of try to intentionally maintain the me that is a separate being? Because like a good, healthy relationship is not being one person. That's not even like like the things that you like about your partner are often things that are different from you. It's like the opposites attracting, so it's been a Of an interesting process to kind of go back to making sure that I am being myself, even if that means that it's not shared things or that there's going to be conflict because that's okay. So there's like activities of like watching things that I like that I know are not shared things, and just like little exposure activities to remember that it's okay to not have everything be shared. Wow. Holy moly.
SPEAKER_00:That's heavy. Okay. So the whole way through that, I'm sitting there and I'm looking at a time, and in my head, I'm thinking, we need to get you back to do a series, I think, if you're up for it, of how to engage in a relationship as a neurodivergent person. Because while it's written in books, I don't know if anybody's ever had that sort of conversation within this sort of space and been like, this is this is some things that you can do, this is some things, this is a way that you can go, this is how your partner might be feeling if they're neurodivergent. Because let's face it, neurotypical people very rarely pick up a book on neurodivergence and and read it.
SPEAKER_06:And stuff is kind of spread across like literature, and then a book here and a book there, and someone's lived experience that they've written in a blog. It's like in order to find all that information, is quite a process to collate it all. And I don't imagine the average person would do that. Plus, like so much research is paywalled and people can't access it, which infuriates me.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, I get angry with that too.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, I've recently become a Wikipedia editor as a result because I realized that like most large language models are trained on Wikipedia. So if Wikipedia is wrong, then like anything someone asks ChatGPT about that will be wrong. Yeah. And so uh I'm going through the the the like Wikipedia articles on things that I'm confident I know enough about to correct and adding and changing things and putting the citations in because I have access to like the peer-reviewed stuff through the university. Uh so I recently changed something about a black chicken on Wikipedia that was wrong. Because I was like, I don't know if this will ever matter to anyone, but now it will be corrected and the models will be able to tell people the right information.
SPEAKER_00:You know, there's like probably about 55 people in the middle of Montana that are just like, thank you, guy.
SPEAKER_01:That's so good. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:We definitely do cool stuff about the chicken that had only recently been discovered. I was like, okay, people need to know this.
SPEAKER_03:Uh people aren't gonna read the this is why I want to forever be a uni student just to get free access to research articles.
SPEAKER_00:This dovetails perfectly into there was two of my colleagues yesterday having a conversation about the sex lives of ducks.
SPEAKER_06:I originally was wearing a duck shirt when I arrived. Ducks are wild. This is it. I think that the the coolest job ever is the the biologist who's doing all the models of the vaginas of different animals and discovering things that somehow we just never learn because of just like the misogyny of the world being like we don't need to know about the biology of female creatures, and now they're going to spit out babies. Oh, that's shaped very differently than we expected. Like the duck vagina is shaped like a corkscrew, too, just like the duck penis, but in the opposite direction, so that it kind of like they they lock with each other. Good lord.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, we then we need to kill that all the time. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_06:Animal sex. I mean, my favorite animal sex fact for you is uh the black swan is very prone to being homosexual, and they found out that uh compared to the the straight swans, when the male black swans uh steal an egg and raise it, those chicks are more likely to make it to adulthood than the ones raised by the straight ducks.
unknown:Fuck.
SPEAKER_03:We all have to find like three animal facts and just keep keep this going. This is amazing.
SPEAKER_06:We have an entire book on animal homosexuality. It's called like biological exuberance, because exuberance is an old-timey word that people used to use to mean gay, but it also means like biological diversity. Oh my god.
SPEAKER_03:This is a I'm still I'm gonna Google the ducks now.
SPEAKER_01:Black swans, that's our state emblem.
SPEAKER_03:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:The new one. I always knew WA was a little bit different.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, is oh I'm from New South Wales. I'm like, is it?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you guys are weird. Uh I think on that note, Kai, this has been amazing.
SPEAKER_02:Fascinating again.
SPEAKER_00:I loved it. Um I I got so much out of this as an educator, and I suppose as a human being as well, just now realizing that there are different languages that we we all talk in that sometimes it's okay to just sit there and just ask a damn question, like, hey, what do you need from me?
SPEAKER_02:And the same, like obviously, like in in psychology, you know, we do look at neurodivergence and you know it's it's definitely a topic that we that we study, but it that there's no no comparison to learning from another human being. So thank you. I've learnt some cool stuff as well.
SPEAKER_03:Need to need to, but I'm just liking another therapy session, like every other episode.
SPEAKER_06:I guess my only other takeaway would be uh the like if anyone is curious to do this, to go Google the neurodivergent love languages and compare that to the typical love languages you learn in sexology and see how different they are. You might discover that actually like the way that someone you know is behaving around you that might seem odd actually is one of the love languages. Uh I find that's useful sometimes to realize that that what someone is doing that you think is strange is actually them expressing their love.
SPEAKER_02:I have friends that pebble me all the time, so definitely have a look.
SPEAKER_00:I've uh I've figured out what I'm doing tonight. Pebbling? I'm gonna research a love language. Okay, great.
SPEAKER_02:See you next time, Kai. Yeah. Thanks so much.
SPEAKER_01:Catch you guys.
SPEAKER_02:Bye.
SPEAKER_01:And that was part two of our conversation with the wonderful Kai Schweitzer. And wow, what a ride through the world of neurodiversity, sex, and relationships that was.
SPEAKER_00:We covered everything from sensory processing and social cues to the higher rates of gender and sexual diversity among neurodivergent folks. And the ways our systems still have a lot of catching up to do.
SPEAKER_01:If this conversation opened your mind, made you laugh, or helped you just understand yourself or someone you love a little better, please take a moment to vote for Super Sex in the Adult Industry Choice Awards for, of course, the best podcast.
SPEAKER_00:It's quick, it's free, and it helps us keep bringing you these open, thoughtful, occasionally chaotic conversations about sex identity and being gloriously human. The link, as always, is in the show notes. So don't give us some love, and we'll see you next time on Super Sex.
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