 a lot of our audience has gone through these dating struggles. If you're listening and you're in a relationship, you may find some of this entertaining, you may learn some science behind attraction and what makes us interested in our partner. But ultimately, there are a lot of insecurities and misconceptions around dating. And I think the biggest one that everyone is now facing is consent. And we want to jump in and start off with a clear definition of consent. Now, Michael, who helps us research the show, he phoned up Dr. Amy Hassanoff, who's an associate professor of communication at the University of Colorado, Denver, and the author of the book, Sexting Panic, to talk about consent. And he started off by asking what it is. So how do you define consent? So a definition that I really like has four parts. And those are that consent has to be clear, coherent, willing and ongoing. And here's the thing. It sounds pretty straightforward. I think a lot of us in hearing that no, yes, it needs to be clear. Absolutely. It needs to be coherent, which again, in college, a lot of us get confused and struggle with. It needs to be willing. I think we all understand. Ongoing, for me, was the interesting part. Because I think most of us, when we think about consent, and especially as men, we view it as checking a box of like, okay, this is a go, let's move forward. But this idea that it needs to be ongoing, it's not something that you just check and move on from. But both people need to be comfortable with where things are going in order for consent to be reached. And the thing with ongoing is that as you're moving, as you're progressing through the relationship, through the intimacy, that both parties are on the same page with that. And you have to be paying attention to the other person's expressions of how she's going to communicate that. And that's exactly what Dr. Hassanov had to say. I think the key is paying attention. Because I think when people really are into someone, they get this idea, I'm really into this person, I need to take my chance and see what happens. And they sort of have this feeling of like, you know, I need to be brave and I need to do it. So let's say you've finished your drinks, you're out on the street, it's the end of the night, someone's about to get in a cab or call a cab or whatever. If you are acting like a detective, and you're being very attentive to the other person's body language and how they're reacting, you could say something pretty simple like, I really, I really like you. I had a really great time tonight. And as you do that, get a bit closer and maybe touch a body part that is neutral, like, you know, the outside of your arm. And then, so most people at this point are going to just go straight in for kissing, right? But if you can- I've gone halfway, let's get this over with. Right? Because they're nervous. And because I think they see the kiss as something to accomplish. It's that mentality that like, you want to get intimacy from someone and you just need to get them to agree and you need to record that agreement. But that whole way of thinking about it, it's not going to be good for anyone. It's not going to be good for you. It's not going to be good for the partner. You have to think about intimacy as something you build together, not something you get from someone. You're going to be a lot better off if you think about the kiss at the end as something that the two people should be doing together. I love that. And I do think that intimacy is something that you're building together. It's not a checkbox. It's not something that we're trying to catch and move on to. But it's something that both parties are enjoying and building. And I know for myself, you know, as I was younger, it was easy to just think of those things as, Oh, I got to get this. I got to get that and not really realize and pay attention to the subtle nuances from my partner. Well, once again, we get back into our biology and what we are prone to do. And as men, there is a lot of pressure put on us to have this heroic mindset, heroic intelligence, which is all about risk. And if you're unwilling to take these big risks, well, then you're not really a man. And we have to shatter that script. That is an old script. That script is going to get you in a lot of trouble. It's going to get you in a lot of trouble with the opposite sex. It's going to get you in a lot of trouble with the people around you, with your friendships. It's going to get you in trouble your own safety. And so we rather than looking at it as an heroic intelligence, we have to look at it as an emotional intelligence. And what I love that she said there is being the detective and paying attention to not only verbal consent, but nonverbal consent. And I think that's where a lot of us got lost 12 years ago as men listening to the advice we're seeing online, which was all about manipulating to get the result that you want, not being the detective and certainly not paying close attention to the nonverbal communication. And in fact, that's why we started the boot camp 12 years ago was to hone in on our nonverbal communication. So the signals that are subtle and nuanced can give us clues into is this going in the right direction? Is this going in the wrong direction? Is this person comfortable or uncomfortable? But unfortunately, when all we focus on is the words, we don't get that subtlety. And that's when we become the oath. That's when we become someone who's unattractive. Well, that emotional intelligence is going to play a role in every aspect of our lives. So it's going to play, as I was saying, it's going to play a role with our friendships, with ourselves, with the romantic relationships in our lives. And those skills need to be developed. The heroic intelligence, that's biology, that's programmed in everything else beyond that takes rising above that primal. The crock brain, the crock brain and then thinking your way through things and that needs developed. And that takes time and that takes patience. Yeah. And unfortunately, there's bad advice out there that may get you that that checkmark gets you the physical intimacy, but ultimately leads to regret leads to the other person feeling unsafe and uncomfortable. Well, this is why young boys get confused, because they can find information on the internet that feeds the crock brain and allows them the crock brain to feel good of, oh, this is how I'm going to be a man. This is what I'm going to need to do. And it feeds into all those inner intuitions that are looking to take control. However, it is that simple programming that is going to get you in trouble if you allow it to do its thing. We have tons of simple programming that gets us in trouble. How about the simple programming that tells us, hey, that McDonald's chi burger is just as good as eating salad. The whole foods you know is much better for you. But if I go with the crock brain, I'm going to get sick. And so once again, we're trying to override another primal system. This one just happens to be the sexual primal brain. And Dr. Hasanoff makes a great point about that, Johnny. The problem is our sexual script in our culture is usually not great for anyone because it involves not really thinking about consent, not talking about consent, verbal or nonverbal, right? It involves usually men being told they're supposed to be aggressive and women being told, well, you don't want to be rude. You don't want to reject anyone. You're just sort of supposed to wait and see what happens. And you're also not supposed to make the first move. But there are plenty of women who would love to be able to make the first move. And it would be better for everyone if it was more shared, right? Like if sometimes the woman was the one who sort of leaned in and said, oh, your eyes are so beautiful or whatever. I think a lot of guys would be really happy if that were happening because it takes a lot of panic out of the dating market. Exactly. Exactly. And it's a lot less common. Some women will do it, but it is so much less common because people are on a date and the guy gets the idea like, it's my job to go in for the kiss. But he's not even that interested in the woman he's on a date with. But he just kind of feels like, well, this is what you do at the end of the date. You go in for the kiss. Now that we have a definition of consent, which is just paying attention to what the other person is saying and doing in their actions, and it's continuous, we can start to move forward in a smart way.