The Birds, The Bees, and The BCBAs: Understanding Sexual Behavior Analysis with Nicholas Maio-Aether (Part II)

ABA on Tap is proud to present Nicholas Maio-Aether (Part 2 of 2):

Find the most comfortable seat in the house,  pour yourself a cold one, maybe two! In this episode of ABA on Tap, hosts Mike Rubio and Dan Lowery are joined by the "Sex Analyst" himself, Nicholas Maio-Aether.

Nicholas is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA), Licensed Behavior Analyst (LBA), and a certified sexuality counselor who specializes in Sexual Behavior Analysis (SBA)—a subfield he pioneered at his agency, Empowered: A Center for Sexuality LLC.

In this "pour," we’re serving up:

• The Intersection of Sexology and ABA: Why Nicholas saw a desperate need for competency in addressing sexual behavior within behavior analysis and how he bridges that gap.
• Humanistic & Affirming Care: Moving away from traditional "mitigation" or "extinction" of sexuality toward approaches focused on self-determination, sexual access, and gender affirmation.
• Navigating Taboos: Real talk on the "good, the bad, and the ugly" history of ABA and sexuality, and how to ethically teach consent and education to neurodivergent populations.
• Sensate Focus & Practical Tools: A look at how behavior analysts can use clinical rigor to help clients achieve meaningful relational outcomes.

Whether you’re a BCBA looking to expand your scope of practice or just curious about how behavior science applies to the most human of narratives, this episode delivers science-backed insights with the signature ABA on Tap humor and practicality.

*This episode is marked 'Explicit' simply due to the topic and themes discussed. 

TUNE IN, DRINK UP, and ALWAYS ANALYZE RESPONSIBLY!

Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:01

Welcome to ABA on tap.

SPEAKER_03 0:13

A mic review with Dan Lowry. So without further ado, sit back, relax, and always analyze respond. All right, and welcome back to yet another installment of ABA on tap. I am your ever-grateful co-host, Mike Rubio, and this is part two of our interview with Nicholas Mayo Ater. It's a good one. Enjoy. Great memory. Dear Lord, good for you. That's incredible.

SPEAKER_02 0:51

Autism for the way. But so so taking something, you know, from literature and being like, I think we can utilize this, and then seeing across clients, it works. This works. So there's there's power in that. And when people are like, oh, you know, it it can open up this can of worms or whatever, he's gonna want to do it all day. I also point out, like, okay, what if? What if there isn't a refractory period? What if magically they're just able to keep going all day? It's a good thing that we're gonna be providing them with good lubricant. It's a good thing that we've taught them public versus private. What is it that you're so afraid they're gonna miss out on by doing that? You know, is it they're gonna miss out on dinner? I'm if he gets hungry enough, I'm sure he'll come out. Right? He's gonna miss an appointment. Okay, if this is a new thing to him, can we just rearrange the appointment? If it's not a new thing to him, the likelihood is he's probably not gonna have this issue ongoing. Like again, he's gonna he's gonna get satiated.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:56

So that's that's really how we kind of tackle that. And something that I've pointed out is I'm like, when I was in high school, we had a kid, he had ADHD, but nothing, he wasn't in special ed or anything. We had a kid who, well, we had a contest. Teenage boys had a contest, and it was the jerk-off contest. How many can you jerk off? How many times can you jerk off in a day? Right? And we were reporting back to each other. Nobody is like, everybody's scouts honor, you know, like nobody is actually keeping track or watching or whatever. But we had a dude who shut up and claimed 11 times in a day. All right. He claimed 11 times in a day. Now, I don't know if he was being honest or not, but I can tell you that the only person I know who says that he's done it 11 times in a day is now a very successful man. Um he's grown up, he's fine. All right.

SPEAKER_05 2:50

He's not stuck in some isolated situation and just going at himself all day.

SPEAKER_02 2:55

Don't know of anybody who has that issue if they're effective. Right. Now, I have worked cases where clients were doing that all day. And when we got in there, they're not ejaculating. Right? They're they are riding this near ejaculation point, and they're at a very high level of arousal. And so the MO remains really, really strong, but they cannot get that achieved. And it makes them mad and it's hard to regulate. And everybody's having issues. Life is hard. The clients going up to people naked and like going, what the hell do I do? kind of a thing. And we've literally seen that multiple clients, non-vocal clients, going up to people naked and just looking very confused with their erections. Like, and you know, and if they do that to the wrong person, again, sexual assault, right? So, like, ah, we've got to get in there, we've got to help them. But again, teaching them effective ways to do this. And sometimes, man, we've got to go places to figure out an effective way, especially if this is somebody who has, like, I've worked with people with cerebral palsy, I've worked with people who had microcephaly non-vocal, working with all these different individuals and teaching them. Um, and a lot of people, it's funny, a lot of people think because I do work with couples, they're like, oh, Nicholas doesn't know much about disability. I'm like, no, I've done plenty of work with a variety of populations. When we're getting in there, we have to figure out what their baseline is. We have to find out exactly what's going on. We have to build up the effective task analysis. We also have to build up the motivation to pay attention to the instruction when they are already in distress because they have a high level of arousal and all they want is something achieved now. Um, and so we have done work with clients where literally it's like they come out of their room and we know that they've just tried. And so we're like, okay, right now I'm gonna, I'm gonna just I know your motivation is high, so I'm just gonna try and teach you steps to this task analysis. We've had other clients, like we had one who wouldn't pay attention to anything for more than about 10, 15 seconds. It's really hard to teach somebody. We also knew that he was he was getting to the point of near orgasm, but would stop. If you are, if we look at relational frame theory and and the notion of like tangible components of our lived experience and feelings, we could talk about sensations, sensations that happen in the body. And so when we're having high rates of arousal, there's a lot going on, right? Your heart rate increases, blood flows increasing, you're getting warm, you might experience tingling in your fingers, you're experiencing the same sensations that you get when you're having an anxiety attack. The thing is, you're relationally framing it as arousal, so you're not going into but if you don't know what arousal is, if you don't know that these sensations can be a good thing, you've only ever experienced them in the face of traumas, then of course you're freaking out and stopping yourself right before you orgasm. So now I gotta teach you about your internal world, and I've got to teach you about those sensations, but I don't know what your sensations are because you're non-vocal. I'm sorry, you're really, really tricky. And so we've we've had to figure out like what we can do. And so in some clients, we've been able to actually get really good instruction in. And with some clients, we've tried and tried and eventually just moved to an experiential component and paid a lot of attention to any of their ascent or ascent withdrawal and and just seen we have an item called the hot octopus. This thing, you put this on a penis and it's going to ejaculate. It I I am not kidding you. It was in clinical trials insane. We bought it because the clinical trials demonstrated how effective it was. We had a client who had been attempting ejaculation for two years, put it on him after we had decided that he needed to go the experiential route. He was not, he couldn't understand even happy, mad, sad. There was no way to talk about arousal. So we tried everything. We did Barney videos where Barney was like teaching about like, you know, the feelings, and then moved into like Barney videos of the task analysis. And it's like none of the things were working. Put the hot octopus on him, had his father do it because his father is a safe person. No staff should ever be involved in your sexual stimulation. All right. Period. So I'm not gonna be involved, your staff's not gonna be involved. I'm sure as heck not gonna make a poor RBT do this.

SPEAKER_05 7:29

I'm so glad to hear you say it.

SPEAKER_02 7:31

So dad put this on there. And the this was also naturalistic because he would come up to people with an erection and go, like he was like very confused. He would raise his arms up and look like, What do I do? Help me. So I was like, Dad, when he comes up to you, you're gonna just put this on there. He'd already learned what it was. We had done trials where he knew it vibrated, he'd learned how to turn it on and off. So once we were at that point, it was like you're just gonna put this on him and and let him experience it now. And because of how powerful it is, my prediction is he's going to get all the way through to ejaculation before he can respond. It took seven seconds from the time that it was on until he ejaculated.

SPEAKER_04 8:20

Oh man.

SPEAKER_02 8:22

Right. So that kind of thing is just a powerful moment where you realize like we did this right. Um, this individual did not express any trauma responses, expressed relief, ended up getting cleaned up. And then this became a regular item, regularly used for this individual. And his family ended up buying like kind of cheaper knockoff versions so that they could have backups. That way they never have to go without one.

SPEAKER_05 8:50

That's you said the word relief. It's exactly what came into mind after you said it took seven seconds. I can't imagine. So we talk about, you know, sort of an intrinsic drive and reinforcement. I can't imagine what that was for that individual. I mean, after however long they were waiting for this, uh, and just to be able to have that, to be able to express that, to have that physiological process and then that sense of relief, which I think we can all relate to, that's gotta be incredible. Uh and then how gratifying to be able to uh feel, you know, for yourself as a professional about we we got this right for this person. We see the change, we see the outcomes, we see the collateral effects. Uh that that's that's fascinating. That that's incredible.

SPEAKER_02 9:31

Yeah, yeah, it's been really neat, and it it looks different from person to person. We had we've had people with vibrating pillows, we had somebody where we took because he was always trying to hump the jets in a jacuzzi, we got him private jets to put in his bathtub. Like that was easy. That one we didn't have to do much training. We put the jets in his bathtub, he knew what to do.

SPEAKER_07 9:53

So let me uh I want jets in my bathtub. All right, then that's a separate episode.

SPEAKER_05 9:58

Listen so, in terms of the the the training, I guess that could get pretty involved, and and I'm sure it's very individualized for some of our listeners or somebody who hasn't experienced this. I've got a little bit of experience, very nominal, but you mentioned dad in this particular case or or a trusted person. That could be very unusual for somebody to think about in terms of our role and coming in or somebody's role and coming in to help. Talk about how personal that gets, how hands-on that might have to be. So somebody who's out there listening who's never done this is going, wait, you're gonna train somebody to do what? How do you do that? Right? So you just mentioned now a stimulus or an external stimulus, learning how to use one's hand. What what what might that entail?

SPEAKER_02 10:49

Oh my goodness. Okay. That's a huge question. I get it. No, no, I mean it's an important one. I'm actually very, very, very glad you asked it.

SPEAKER_05 10:55

I'm glad I asked it.

SPEAKER_02 10:57

I don't think I've actually ever gotten to answer this question, and I want to. So what I think is really important in in the narrative I just provided was that we used the least invasive and least restrictive possible thing that we could do. He was already coming up to dad. Dad is already in the home, dad is already a safe person. They this is a young man who is non-vocal and fully staffed. He will be staffed his whole life. I did not want him equivocating staff with this.

SPEAKER_05 11:26

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 11:27

Now, can a dad still abuse their kid? Yes. At the same time, the likelihood is going to be statistically lower. And this dad had gotten through to his kid being a full adult without any claims of sexual abuse. So I was I was feeling pretty good there. Also, the dad's the one who had reached out for help. I was feeling very much like this is not, I'm not worried that this is gonna turn into dad abusing him. However, however, um, I have been called in before. I'm gonna try and not give so many details that this case could be, you know, figured out. Um respectful of people's privacy. But I think it is really important to realize, especially for clinicians, how far this can go without proper help. So there was a family where their their young young man, he, I think it was when he was late teens, had this started. He was attempting sexual behavior and was aggressing upon people, particularly his mom. And so the parents decided that, you know, it was kind of the best solution was gonna be to help him get release. The way that they were doing it was very, very, very uncool, might be the nicest word I can use. Definitely was shaping toward a future that looked much more like ongoing incest than anything else. So mom became his model while dad would uh position him so that he could be stimulated by items.

SPEAKER_06 13:10

Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 13:12

That was going in a direction it never needed to go. So coming in there, you know, that absolutely not doing this. Uh parents were they were involved in assessment, but they were not involved in any of the treatment thereafter.

SPEAKER_05 13:30

Wow. And and I mean somebody listening to this might might think of of those particular parents and and and you know, immediately uh have a negative impression of them. They were doing what they knew best to help. Is that fair to say? It's quite misinformed. I'm I'm not supporting it, but you know, at the same time, good for them. They were trying something, but yeah, missed the mark.

SPEAKER_02 13:53

Yeah, it it became very clear that while they were calling it his masturbation, it was sex, if that makes sense. Yeah, um, and so that's that's where we have to say no, no. So for instance, coming back to like dad putting the hot octopus on, put it on, your hands go off. He goes to his room because he knows his task analysis. We've been teaching him, and all of those steps were followed. Dad, you do need to know whether or not he he ejaculated. Now, of course, this instance that happened the first time, it happened so fast. He never even made it to his room, but we did plan for that. Uh and we had talked about, you know, if he comes out and he's he's naked, his bathroom right across the hall. So if he's naked, he's just straight across the hall to clean himself up, right? Like we just we we tried to to account for all of that as best we could. You know, we don't want anybody, anybody's privacy being violated. And we also it's it's creepy and weird for the parents too, right? We have to empathize with them too. Nobody wants to watch their own kid. Well, I'm sure some people do, but the average person does not want to watch their own kid engage in any kind of sexual behavior. It's gotta feel very, very weird to them. And honestly, a kudos to any parent who comes and and asks for help with that kind of thing, because help is warranted. I don't think you should do it on your own, especially if you start having ideas like let me model for him.

SPEAKER_05 15:29

But you know, man, this this is such an important topic. And again, I I don't think there's just enough, I don't know, I'm gonna say time. There's certainly plenty of interest. There's a there's a there's a taboo aspect of it that keeps people from just truly talking about it openly, and and it's I mean it involves everybody, right? It's not like you can get away from this, it it it truly does involve everybody. I want to talk about so interesting, you know, you you wouldn't have known from your early experience in working at the adult shop that all that information would prove very useful uh to what you're doing now, right? I so speaking about taboo, if we're we're talking about that particular industry, whether it's you know adult materials, people have sort of a negative, can have a negative connotation of that. At the same time, you're using that very information to really help individuals uh achieve things that they wouldn't otherwise be able to achieve. And then we can sort of traips this is gonna be a huge question, we can traize into the idea of say porn positivity versus people that are against it. Kind of give us your general impression as to how all that works together again, given your own experience. I mean, who would have known that knowing about adult toys and novelties would then prove useful? You know, people have these these these notions of like, well, if you teach them to do this, you keep doing it all the time. If we delve into this world of adult materials, whether it's you know video or novelties, people always have this sense of, well, then you're gonna fall into this deep dark world. It's hard for us to look at this as something that's positive or useful. What's your impression of all of that? Kind of give us your you know, your pitch for people. Hey, this can these can be useful tools if posited in in the right way.

SPEAKER_02 17:26

Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 17:28

I know that was a lot. I I had a lot of thoughts, but I I knew you'd have something to say about this.

SPEAKER_02 17:33

So I mean, first, first and foremost, I think anybody who's gonna be addressing adult materials needs to know the Miller test. They need to know the difference between what is legal and what is illegal, what is porn, what is what is illegal porn. I think it's just really, really important that people are aware of that. And you can look up the Miller test. I'm not gonna go into trying to teach everybody that today, but it's very simple. But when it comes down to this idea of porn being detrimental or beneficial, the science is all over the place. So, what I will point out is that any of the studies, even meta-reviews that have been able to demonstrate that like porn is addictive or sexual behavior is addictive, those meta-analyses and all of those studies have been demonstrated to be funded in some way, shape, or form by the evangelical church. And so there's a question of bias. And any studies that are not funded in some way, shape, or form by the evangelical church cannot find it addictive. They they cannot find any any signs that it is more uh quote unquote addictive than like dark chocolate. So if we look at like neuroscans, one of the hardest things to argue, Dr. Nicole Prouse became very, very hated by the nofap movement when she put out her neuroscan imaging that demonstrated that like there were people having a stronger reaction to dark chocolate than to porn. So she was like, you know, this idea that you know you can't control yourself is actually a behavioral compulsion, not an addiction. And so, in that regard, who is better suited to address these issues than a behavior analyst trained in cyclical compulsion, which we do address on our team. So our team does work with people who believe themselves to be porn addicts or sex addicts. When we work with clients where their system thinks that they're porn addicts or sex addicts, we use act as our way of approaching it and we have really, really good outcomes. But something that we point out is we never tell people they can't look at porn, and we don't tell people porn is powerful. That would actually go against the act model, that idea that a stimulus is just a stimulus, how you respond to it is what gives it power. And so we we work really hard to teach our clients like there's something, some rule in your head that has you coming back to this because you think you can't stop. So, like, let's figure out what that rule is, let's flip it on its head where we can. And also, we're not gonna say no porn because why would we? Why can't it be there? It's not addictive. We just have to learn to be okay in its presence, just like we need to be okay with uncomfortable thoughts, and we need to be okay with the person who sits next to us at work that we really hate. Um, we gotta be okay with these things. I can't, I can't, you know, poke him. I want to, but I can't. So just these discomforts and and starting to look at it as a really strong discomfort. And where does that really strong discomfort come from when it comes to porn? It's usually a moral incongruence, the idea that I shouldn't be looking at this. There's the rule, all right? I shouldn't be aroused by this. My rule no longer vibes with my biological reality because I can't control arousal. And now I'm in a cyclical compulsion trying to follow a rule that cannot be followed. So there's this really interesting thing, too, where they've been able to demonstrate that even if having not ever viewed porn, evangelicals are five times more likely than any other population to describe themselves as sex addicts and porn addicts.

SPEAKER_06 21:21

Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 21:22

Virgins who've never looked at porn saying, Yes, I am addicted. So uh it's an interesting framework. So in this regard, I I really come in and I try and emphasize that the issue that people think it's going to be, it's only going to be that issue because you think it's going to be. So if we if we start to address it as a neutral stimulus and and we acknowledge it as only having the power that it has within the context that it has, and then we say that orgasm or or time or whatever, you're abolishing operation. We've moved on. Then we've moved on. Is porn following us through our day? Is it is it making everything bad? If it is, then we're bringing it with us because it's it's not chemically stuck to us. And so again, we can figure that out. We can work through this. This isn't something, it's not the big monster that the media has made it out to be. There's a lot of money, a lot of money in porn addiction treatment and sex addiction treatment. One of the reasons is because it's not successful. So it ends up being lifelong. They have an 11% success rate, right? So it's a treatment that's 89% ineffective is very good, moneymaker.

SPEAKER_05 22:41

People keep coming through recidivism, people keep coming back. Oh wow. That's so I I I want to focus on something, and and you've you've elaborated very well. Maybe you want to add a little bit to this. Those treatment models that you speak of are probably based on abstaining, right? And they are.

SPEAKER_02 22:59

The idea is that's powerful.

SPEAKER_05 23:01

Um you've got to move it away. Yeah, you have no power over it. It's it's the whole abstinence model, like AA or anything else.

SPEAKER_02 23:08

Yes. If you're single. Now, if you're partnered, the model becomes dark. Oh. If you're partnered and you're male, assigned male at birth, then within those that model, all men are born addicted to porn and sex. It's a natural addiction. And so that is what their model expresses. So the only way in a heterosexual coupling for them to move forward is if he is feeling a need, she must fulfill it. If she does not fulfill it, it is her fault if he cheats on her or looks at porn.

SPEAKER_05 23:43

Oh wow. That is pretty dark.

SPEAKER_02 23:46

I have worked with multiple couples who have gone through that. And the oftentimes the woman is very, very wrapped up in trauma. And it's been it's been really, I think, beautiful giving them act treatment and letting them let go of a lot of things. Some have had to get separate trauma counseling, but some have actually been able to just move forward with ACT. And watching a couple fall in love with each other again instead of the woman feeling like she's just the man's sex puppet so that he doesn't cheat is a really, really cool thing to watch.

SPEAKER_05 24:20

Yeah, that sounds incredible.

SPEAKER_06 24:22

So I want to I have a couple questions here on my little notes that that I wrote. So going back to the situation where we had the adolescent where the RBTs were coming up to us and expressing some uncomfortability, I feel like there's variations of that that happen probably all the time at all different providers. And it probably comes from one of three reasons. And I want to poke your brain on the third one. So the first one probably being just the general uncomfortability, you know, with with people and sex and that taboo and everything. The second one being, like you said, the infantilization of it, of this person cognitively seems a little lower. Maybe we have some maternal or paternal, like we know better kind of thing, and I think that can c come into it. And both of those I think are easier dealt with. The third one, I forget whether it was this individual specifically or other adolescents that I've worked with, can be a little bit trickier, and that's when the household, either you maybe think about it with that you were talking about the evangelical church, either the household is religious or the household as a whole doesn't believe in whether it's solo sex or premarital sex or anything like that. So then it's like us as therapists, it's it's it's going between that, you know, like you talked about denial of rights earlier, advocating for rights, but also not tramping on because it's not my kid. Like I can't tell a parent you need to let your kid do this because I'm not their parent. So, what are your thoughts kind of on on navigating that situation? I'm sure you've dealt with uh households that are not fond of it.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:56

That and the whole gay thing, let me tell you. Sure, okay. Okay, yeah. So I I will say, you know, one of the things again is addressing abuse and all of these other things. Like if we can get in here, if if they're already engaging in like public solo sex and stuff, they are at very high risk being an offender or being abused upon, right? So like we need to address that. And maybe if what we can do is instead of if they're already doing it, if we can shape it into a public or sorry, a private place from a public place, then that is safer.

SPEAKER_01 26:31

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 26:31

I'm not I am not gonna be able to mitigate something without an alternative if they're already engaging in it. I can't make this go away. I can help it be safer. And that's that's really the angle that I look at and I emphasize to them if you try to make it go away, research has demonstrated you're going to be very likely to end up with somebody who has cyclical compulsion issues later on and does identify as a sex addict or as a porn addict. So if we can allow them that since they're all again, they're already after this, they're already trying, they're engaging, save time and space, it might not be savory for you. I understand that it might go against your values, it might go against your beliefs, and also wouldn't it go against your values and your beliefs even more to to have him, you know, harm somebody else or to have him so wrapped up in in all of this that he can't pay attention to church anymore? Like these other things that could happen, I think we could avoid. But something that I do emphasize if it's if they're not engaging in solo sex yet, and then you know, the question is are we gonna allow them to engage in solo sex when the time comes? In that kind of a situation, you know, I I just really want to point out again, like people people find a way, and if you try and mitigate something that they can find on their own, it can show up in places you would never expect and in ways you would never expect. Your job as parents is to instill your values, right? And that's not my job. It's your job to instill your values. You can try and make sure that he understands why doing this goes against your values. You can do that. And also, like, I am not gonna tell him that this is bad. I'm not gonna tell him it's bad. I'm not gonna create a punishment procedure for him doing it. That if you want that, you as parents, you can figure that out. And I as an advocate will tell you what I think will be the outcome, but I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna push it because as you said, this is your kid, right? This is your kid. Now, something that I do when when we aren't vibing, when we're not able to to come together. And I do this a lot with my queer kids and their families.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 29:03

And also with their staff, when they're not allowing them to express or they won't let them date because it's gay. And they're like, you know, if we let them do that, then they're going to be damned forever or whatever. You know, I've had some staff who like they're like, well, it goes against my beliefs, so he can't go to the gay bar. Excuse me? He's a grown man, he's got his own money, and you are allowed to take him out to bars. Well, I would, I will, I'll take him to the pub, I'll take him anywhere, not a gay bar. He's supposed to get out to his community. If he's gay, he needs to be allowed to go to his community. So with this, when I have people who are kind of like butting heads, if it's for their own comfort, that's a little trickier. If it's a staff person, I can advocate and probably get some training in place or get them removed. But oftentimes with parents, it's not about comfort. I think to some degree it is, but I uh there's this huge underlying thing, and I think I I understand it because my parents put me through reparative therapy and I have forgiven them. But what I perceived as a teenager as hate and bigotry and not understanding me, trying to control me, trying to keep me from living, which did make me feel suicidal. Uh I perceived it all that way. Now I can see, and and I've been able to see for a while a while now, it was love. Ugh, it looked and felt like hate, but it was love. She was my mom was scared. She she wanted my the best for me. She wanted my soul to be, you know, eternally alongside hers. She really wanted to have a son who wouldn't face adversity. She didn't at the time it wasn't legal for us to get married. She wanted me to be able to experience the joy of marriage, you know, like all these things that she was just so heartbroken and scared and sad. And so there's a high motivation to try and get your kid to be quote unquote normal.

SPEAKER_01 31:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:09

There is. And it's not a healthy motivation because it can lead to suicide, but it is a normal motivation. So what I what I really want to emphasize there when I'm I'm working with parents, and and that motivation, the motivation itself is healthy, the typography of it is what is unhealthy. So when I'm working with them, I talk to them about I say, and this is you can totally borrow this. Anybody listening, borrow this, take it from me. I don't care. I tell parents, I might be a shitty behavior analyst, but I believe in a fifth function. This is a canned response, but my gosh, it works. I tell them I believe in a fifth function, that function is love. And that that function, like all behavior, can take multiple topographies. And so your topography, the way that you're you're throwing this out right now, what you are telling this individual, it makes so much sense to me. You want them to be safe. You love them. I respect the shit out of how much you are fighting me on this, actually, because I feel like this person's going to be so safe with you ongoing, and I care about them through the lifetime, and I know you do. So this is really cool that we're actually butting heads because it means you care. And you'd be amazed how much walls start to drop when I thank them for fighting me.

SPEAKER_01 32:35

Uh like you would be amazed. That's really cool. That is really cool.

SPEAKER_02 32:39

I tell them what I want to do is I want your child or your teen or your adult that you call your child, I want them to perceive the love that you are trying to give as love. And in order to do that, we might have to shift the topography. There might have to be some changes to the restrictions you're putting in place or the rules in place. But at the end of the day, if you want him to stay alongside you through his life, and you want to be able to continue to instill your values, your beautiful family values through his life, so that he does have a better chance at an eternal life with you, you've got to keep him feeling loved by you. And that's been a really powerful one.

SPEAKER_06 33:28

Yeah, I might have to steal that. That's that's really good, just in general, when you're talking about also other cultures and and ways of people just responding to behaviors different culturally culturally as well. I did have a couple other places I wanted to go. Anything on this that you wanted to?

SPEAKER_05 33:44

Well, I did, and and you may not want to delve into this too far, but having gone through the reparative or the conversion therapy, that has to stay with you in terms of at the very least, what not to try and have people do in these situations. I don't know if you care to talk about that at all in terms of I guess what the intent was, what what what that looked like in going through that process, and uh just kind of giving us a chance to see, you know, where we're from a parent perspective, it's as you just described, it's gonna have some sort of benevolent intent. And then obviously it's coming across very erroneously. I mean, so what what are the types of things that they try to have individuals do in terms of that reparative or conversion process?

SPEAKER_02 34:29

Well, okay, so there's two main models that you're gonna find in compar in conversion therapy, and that's gonna be conversion and reparative. Conversion is old school behaviorism, and it was developed uh by Ivar Lavos in his book, The Feminine Boy Project. And also that feminine boy, Andrew Kirk Murphy, did commit suicide. So Lavos's golden study did not end well. But the the the process that in is kind of that standard conversion is also physical physical. So there's like it gets bad. Okay. So things like having them, you know, get beat by belts if they say something gay or act effeminently. Now, this was not in the feminine boy project. The original manual that LaVos wrote was more about like giving them attention and the idea that if if a boy is not acting like he's cisgender and heterosexual, he should be completely ignored from society until he acts that way. That was more his his take. And so that was used as a foundation for that more intense conversion therapy, and then has kind of worked its way over into what is now reparative therapy. So instead of beating people, um, which was more common, electric shock was pretty common, ammonia was pretty common. And those things are still happening. They just a couple years ago closed down a place in Alabama that was beating kids with belts and using shock therapy. So these places do still exist. What I went through was reparative therapy, which actually more mirrors what's what's really in the feminine boy project, and that was to make me feel as bad as possible about any aspect of myself that was not adhering to norms. Right. And so basically, you get paired with somebody. My guy's name was Shane, right? Shane was cool, he was a cool dude. Um I was a teenager, he was young, he was in his 20s, he was covered in tattoos, he had like bleach blonde hair. He was cool, man. He was gonna be like somebody I'd want to be like. Yeah, you see what they do?

SPEAKER_01 36:42

Right?

SPEAKER_02 36:43

Uh so so they start making me feel like I want to be like Shane, right? So at first hanging out with him, I didn't even know I was in reparative therapy. I just knew that I was in a new youth group, right? And so I'm hanging out with Shane, the youth pastor, but he does one-to-one hangouts with everybody, which also who's setting kids up to be sexually abused, but anyway, anyway, uh, so so this man meets with me one-to-one, and then we would meet with the youth group once a week. And in our one-to-one meetings, it was all like just building me up and talking about how cool I was and all these other things, but then he would start to question. He would, I was like, everything was really cool, but there was this thing I said, and he would question it, and then he would start to pick at it. And what he would try and get me to do was admit that I had some kind of feminine urge or some kind of gay thought. And if I had any of that, he'd be like, Oh, yeah, oh, where'd that come from? And like we'd start talking about that that influence that Satan was having on me and making me say these things. And and so then from there, we would look at what do you do? What do you do when this happens? And after a few weeks, I wasn't in it for very long. After a few weeks, this man went too far. And when he went too far, I went too far in response. Uh he you know, autistic people, we can be pretty bull-headed, man. So he uh he told me, and I now know that this is called differential reinforcement of an alternative behavior, but he told me to any time that he has gay thought, he goes and he gets a tattoo of Jesus. That's why he's covered in them. And he is covered in tattoos of Jesus.

SPEAKER_06 38:28

Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 38:29

He said that the whole time the pain reminds him of atonement and of the pain that Christ went through on the cross, and that I need to find something where I can give myself that level of pain to remind myself what Christ went through on the cross for me so that I can push back on my gay thoughts.

SPEAKER_07 38:49

Interesting. That's a lot, man. Sorry, I gotta stop you there.

SPEAKER_05 38:54

That's that is the true I don't even know how to make sense of that. I I that is a tremendous amount of oh jeez.

SPEAKER_06 39:03

How that wouldn't send somebody into depression is man, that would get you thinking about everything.

SPEAKER_02 39:08

No, I was suicidal. Oh wow, yeah, it was pretty ugly. That is a lot of ugly. That is a lot. So I went to one of my friends, told her what I was going through, admitted to her that I had a lot of gay feelings. She ended up coming out as a lesbian leader. But she was like, Well, we're gonna we're gonna get you out of there. And so I got out of there by telling my mom, my friend told me to do this, that convert or reparative therapy was going really, really well. We didn't call it that though. It was like my time with shame. My time with shame was going really well. And I was having so much fun. I really liked looking at his tattoos all over his body, his tattoos of Jesus, where Jesus was barely wearing anything. And I was starting to find myself kind of aroused by the idea of Jesus. And maybe, maybe, mom, I want to attend church more so I can look at Jesus on a person. Um, I was out of reparative therapy that day. I love it. That's pretty good.

SPEAKER_05 40:04

That that is wow.

SPEAKER_02 40:06

I had to commit some sacrilege, but uh and you don't have any tattoos of Jesus, I presume.

SPEAKER_05 40:13

So I'm I'm glad for you. I am glad for you. Uh thank you for sharing that. I really appreciate that. It's it's you know, we you hear about these things in different circles, you know, media reports, and uh yes, they're always made to be seen probably as horrific as they are, at least in my experience. And then there's somebody like yourself who who's gonna have a whole different take on it based on an actual experience. And again, what a I love the way you you described earlier just uh the intent of say a parent who's who's really trying to do their best for their child, yet it it it the outcome is is this is what you're describing, which which couldn't be you know uh is so detrimental. It's such a terrible experience. Uh what a what a what an ironic twist. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 41:02

I'm so sorry. I am going to have to ask for a break. I've I have been trying to hold it to the and I cannot hold it anymore. Go right ahead. Go right ahead.

SPEAKER_07 41:13

Take your time, take your time.

SPEAKER_02 41:15

I am hurting.

SPEAKER_05 41:18

All right, we're kicking back in here. Now you you are you're more than welcome to ask for a break. We're glad you did. You made it close to me. We're, you know, I don't know when we'll end, but we're getting close to it here in terms of time. So we we're glad you took the break. It's uh you're gonna be much more comfortable now talking.

SPEAKER_06 41:32

So before we change, because that was a that was a very interesting uh story. Anything on that before we change? So I I've used the term taboo a lot, and you mentioned that you're now starting to go international with your company as well. Do you notice there in other countries where or at least I've heard sex and sex talk and understanding of sex and sexuality is much less taboo? Do you notice that internationally with your international clients? And how do you notice that affecting do you find that people are more open? Is it just easier, or do you notice any differences?

SPEAKER_02 42:05

I would say it's it's definitely gonna depend on the exact region. But if we're looking at like Europe, if we're looking at Australia, yeah, they're so much more progressive in a lot of ways. Like Australia boggled my mind. I went down there, I led workshops, and I learned. I was like, wait, hold on. I was like, I'ma sit down, you guys teach me now. What literally, like found an agency down there? Shout out to Billy Cart Behavior. Oh, nice. Where they had they had clients who were sending, you know, dick pics out, and then they realized, like, well, we don't need to mitigate the behavior, we need to shift its context. Are you okay with Gaiman receiving these? Because gay men like dick pics. Uh they got them grinder accounts, let them sit there instead and they stopped getting in trouble for sending the girls.

SPEAKER_05 43:00

Uh I mean, yeah, there you go.

SPEAKER_02 43:03

What a smart idea, right?

SPEAKER_05 43:05

It's replacement behavior, right? I mean, we're replacing the uh I guess the the the end means or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 43:11

That's they're getting reinforcement, they're getting told it looks great, they're getting you know, they're getting asked to send more. So they want it.

SPEAKER_07 43:18

Reinforcement by definition, right there. Send more. Shout out to what is it, Billy Cart Behavior?

SPEAKER_02 43:23

Yes, Billy Cart Behavior. So yeah, we we have groups in the UK, Ireland, been really, really progressive and just have really, really cool ideas. And then, you know, there are there are countries where like we recognize that affirming care is like not allowed. Like, you're gonna get not only are you gonna lose your your clinician's license, you can lose your head, right? So, like being very real about that. So I came out with an international credential that's different from my CBS credential. It's called the SXL. The SXL is through the IBAO, the International Behavior Analysis Organization. It's actually not yet been fully unveiled, although they're they're already giving teasers, so I can say it.

SPEAKER_05 44:10

Cool. Thank you for mentioning it.

SPEAKER_02 44:12

Yeah. So it's a 10 CEU training that's going out to countries all around the world. And some of those countries, like we're still having to adhere to our ethics code that says that we should be doing best practices and we should be affirming human beings and doing beneficence. But sometimes you're in a country where that might be illegal. And so making that training was one of the hardest things I have had to do. It was actually harder to make that 10-hour training than to build up our 60-hour curriculum for my my major certification because I had to look into international laws.

SPEAKER_06 45:07

Yeah, you don't want to get a call from somebody like I'm in prison because you told me I should affirm their care and I'm they're threatening death penalty.

SPEAKER_02 45:14

Exactly. I have a whole three three hours are on ethics, and a big portion of it is about navigating ethics versus laws and trying to just really understand in your area how do you move forward without making it specific to each region. And so we'll see. One thing that we did put, you know, my company, our name is on there as the developer. And so we're listed as, you know, ideal consult. And so I have a feeling we're going to be seeing more of that. Right now, it's more the progressive countries that are already reaching out to us. But as this goes out into the some of the more conservative countries, I think it's gonna be really interesting to see what happens.

SPEAKER_06 46:16

Yeah, that would because even like you, you know, you were talking about the the the shame a lot of the the women that you work with might feel based on the the therapy that was provided, making them feel guilty if they're you know if their husbands were cheating or they weren't satisfying their arousal, you know, that might be culturally instilled in certain cultures, like that that that you know, the more patriarchal cultures like where there's the females tend to be more subservient. That's there's so many variables that I'm sure you're they're gonna be going across your desk that you're gonna have to kind of juxtapose laws with ethics, as you said. And that's gotta be on the flip side though, it's gotta be challenging, like trying to give something within the context of the laws without compromising your ethics too much. Is that is that fair?

SPEAKER_02 47:03

Well, that's part of why I didn't go ahead and say do this in each region. I was like, you're gonna figure out how to do this in each region. Yeah. But yeah, I I I think it's just it's we live in a world where you know you can put a stimulus in front of uh 10 people and you can get 10 completely different reactions. And so trying to predict ahead of time based on past patterns is something that we obviously as behavior analysts we try to do. But if you're gonna put a stimulus out there and you can account for variability, account for it where you can. And so as I made this credential, that was a huge part of that is I wanted it to be something, it doesn't matter. It's going out, I know it's going into China, it's going Russia, it's going out to all of the European countries, different African countries, regardless of where they are. I want them to be able to access ABA skills and be able to apply them within an ethical framework overlapped with whatever their local legal framework is. Something that we always have to recognize is like laws do have to come first, because if you end up in prison, how well are you gonna be able to ethically help any of your other clients?

SPEAKER_01 48:16

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 48:17

Law has to come before ethics.

SPEAKER_01 48:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:20

Now, are there sometimes ethical workarounds? Yes, there are. And so that's what we I do kind of say if you can find an ethical workaround, like look for those, but you that's gonna be on you. That's your workaround you figured out. Sure, you know, we have this new thing here in the US where it's ironic that it's a new thing because it's also an old thing, it became new again, where you know, now, especially through like Medicaid funding and stuff, there's only supposed to be two sexes, and we no longer acknowledge the genders and gender variation. And so, like, what do we do with that? Right. And so something that I I immediately did was I reached out to heads of state and I was like, Do I have to make a change? Like legally, as soon as I I sa I saw the mandate being said by our president, I reached out that day. I was like, what what legally do I need to change or what consequences will I face if I don't? And we were told that until a specific mandate goes out, you don't have to change anything. And whenever a specific mandate goes out, you have to adhere to the rules of that mandate. So I've already started preparing my staff. We don't know what the mandate might be, but we know that at some point Missouri is going to act on that and they're going to put out a mandate. So we've already started talking. If they say, like we have a few trans clients, they say that it cannot have the gender that they identify as being referenced. So, you know, she assigned male at birth, but she identifies as a woman, she's she's a trans woman. Then if they say we can't do that anymore, that we have to say he, we're gonna avoid pronouns altogether. Client engaged in this, client did that, client did this, client did that. No more need for he's or she's or they's. So that's the kind of thing that we're like, we're going to just we'll find our work around so that we don't have to do something that would be harmful, like using he on a note that she's gonna read, right? I'm just gonna start using her name.

SPEAKER_06 50:29

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 50:30

Period. Don't need pronouns when you use proper nouns. So we'll just move to proper nouns, right?

SPEAKER_05 50:36

I guess it's uh maybe it's been an active time for workarounds for you given the current political climate. You've been doing this a lot. We could probably do a whole episode episode on this.

SPEAKER_06 50:49

Oh man. One other question, but for real, we probably could, and that'd be a really good episode.

SPEAKER_05 50:54

We should we definitely will have to have we didn't we didn't really touch the gender part. I mean, we well sex gender. I know that's a that that's a that's an ongoing discussion, but yeah, we could probably do a whole episode on that. We have not.

SPEAKER_06 51:03

Because his origin story was so good, we haven't even gotten through that. So you your initial kind of sex therapy, that kind of experience, you know, as you talked about with with Easter Seals, you you had some clients like that, and then when you left, they actually stayed with you. What would it be fair to say that your initial foyer into behavior analysis with with kind of the the sexuality context was that primarily with individuals with autism?

SPEAKER_02 51:33

Yes, I would say autism and like pretty impactful intellectual disability.

SPEAKER_06 51:40

And how would you say that those experiences maybe affected where you are today? Because that's going to be a very unique, I would uh venture to guess the vast majority of people in the sexuality space don't start with individuals with autism. How would you say that maybe affected your perspective, affected how you view things, affected your experiences?

SPEAKER_02 51:59

I d I tell you what, like day one, day one, first day of practicum with a client. I got thrown through a wall. I literally two by four bruised like down my back. That was awesome. Um my battle wound. I learned very, very quickly meet people where they're at.

SPEAKER_01 52:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 52:28

Sure. And I do think that working with autistic people did for me, it it created a sense of patience and and willingness to find out what is deeper in there that I don't think necessarily every therapist has. Something to me that really stands out is like, I didn't even know I was autistic until I started working with autistic folk. And then I I went and I got diagnosed, like formally assessed and diagnosed when I was 27. But I I know what it is like once I realized, like, oh, like this is the Tism. So I know what it is like to be completely overwhelmed and have language shut down. And I know what it is like to not understand why no one around you seems to be helping you, but they all are acting like you're not accepting their help. Um, and so I I know what that is like. And so that's something where I think I have been able to take that and be like, regardless of where you're at, I'm gonna meet you there. We don't even need to talk right now. Like, if you if you are in a mode, like let's put on a video game until you're ready to start talking, right? Like, and that's the kind of thing that I don't think the average sex therapist would be like, let's bust out, you know, some Minecraft until you're ready to start talking. And having just the the blend of skills, I think is a really cool skill set to have. And I I I just wish more people did.

SPEAKER_06 54:07

That's so cool. I wonder because that adds another variable, right? Like I would do a lot of parent trainings. That's something I'm very proud of the last 10 years. And so often, probably longer than that, 15 years now. So often parents, you know, child does X behavior, and parents would say, Well, is that just are they just doing that, or is that the autism, right? They would they would start to add just getting a diagnosis, adds another variable into somebody's life, and they're wondering, is it the autism or not? And then I imagine that you encountered that, and I'm using that word because that's what they would say to me. They would say, Is it the autism? I'm imagining you would get that either from parents or people you worked with. Like, are these sexual behaviors nor and again? I'll put normal in in quotes because I'm sure that we could do a whole and we should do a whole podcast on normal sexual behaviors, but like the the autism variability in that, right? You probably dealt with a lot of whether it's parents or whatever, attributing some of the stuff to autism and trying to navigate that could probably be pretty tricky.

SPEAKER_02 55:10

Yeah. Well, something I when I'm working with my autistic couples, and then like I've got one right now where one's autistic and the partner is neurotypical. And we go through kind of a little bit of a journey sometimes where it's like, is this my autism or am I a dick? Right? Like if just very real about that. Oh, give me just a moment. I'm gonna shut the store.

SPEAKER_07 55:34

I love that could be a cool game show. That would be a great game show. We would have to make that a segment on ABA on tap. I don't know. Well, it's like the Reddit thread.

SPEAKER_06 55:44

Am I the asshole? There's a Reddit thread. And A M I A, Kaylee always is on that. Yeah, go ahead, sorry.

SPEAKER_02 55:50

No, it's uh, you know, the AITAs, right? Um so so that thing of like, you know, how much of this, because you don't want your autism to be an excuse, right? Your partner definitely doesn't want that to be an excuse because then they never get their way. And usually the autistic person doesn't want to be a burden, and so they don't want to be falling back on their autism as an excuse. And so it becomes like to what degree should I be pushing myself through discomforts? To what degree should I be taking the advice of people online who tell me I should never have to? Because there's definitely those people, and so it's like trying to really navigate that, and I think it's actually an oddly very human thing to do is to navigate like how much of this motivation is me just being reactive, and how much of this is like me.

SPEAKER_06 56:45

Yeah. Man, there's so many other questions, but I feel like if I open the open the cans, because we've got to talk about gender at some point, we gotta get them back on to talk about that discussion. About I forget the term you used. You said something slash kinks. I thought you said maybe atypical sexual behaviors. What was the term you used? I'm not sure. I don't know. You said something, you said aka kinks. I think there's a lot.

SPEAKER_02 57:10

Oh, I said diversities and expression.

SPEAKER_06 57:12

There you go, diversities and expression.

SPEAKER_02 57:14

That's that's because it's one of our core knowledge areas for our curriculum.

SPEAKER_06 57:18

Yeah, so much that we're gonna have to have. Nick, do you like Nicholas or Nick, or do you not care?

SPEAKER_02 57:22

Uh, I do prefer Nicholas.

SPEAKER_06 57:24

Nicholas. Nicholas and Rachel back on.

SPEAKER_05 57:26

I am, I mean, I'm floored. I I like Dan, I've got a million more things to ask you. We're gonna have to have you back on just in the interest of uh your uh Sunday evening and our Sunday afternoon. Well, this is probably a good place to to wrap up. But uh what an enlightening conversation. We are so appreciative of your time and your knowledge today. Thank you so much for agreeing to sit with us. And yeah, this this this uh we'll make sure this is not the first and only time. We're gonna have to have you back on. Any anything you want to promote or plug before we wrap up where people can find you or where you want them to find you.

SPEAKER_02 58:00

Yes, thank you for that opportunity. So my company is Empowered, a Center for Sexuality, and our website is empoweredcenter.com. We have a free media page there that actually has two episodes of ABA on tap with Rachel Benson.

SPEAKER_05 58:17

Oh, thank you.

SPEAKER_02 58:18

You can access a bunch of different videos and podcasts where myself and my staff have been disseminating, and we just want people to have free access to info. There's also a tab on there that can give you all the information on the CBS certification. You can even download the manual right from our website. And please keep us in mind for consultation. Anytime something comes up on your case that you're like, whoa, I don't know what to do with this, or it's just new. It's really helpful to have somebody with you who's done it before. Something that we do at Empowered is we if we recommend a program or a material, we provide it at no additional cost. We do not charge for our materials here. I mean, a lot, I think a lot of people get like nervous to go into a consultation because they think it's going to turn into a bunch of money. A lot of times our consultations are one-offs. You know, if we don't think that we need to keep meeting with you, we might recommend continuing to meet with you, but we also won't hold you to that. There's just so much benefit, I think, to people working together. So please keep us in mind and let us help you where we can.

SPEAKER_06 59:25

When you say consultation, are you talking about consulting with somebody actually going through some issues with their sexuality more on the client level? Or are you talking about consulting with providers?

SPEAKER_02 59:37

I was actually referring more to consulting with other behavior analysts. Okay. Um, because we we consult with behavior analysts worldwide and then assist them with their cases. But definitely, if you're going through things and you want to have some behavior analytic treatment, feel free to reach out. We would love, I'll be honest, we're all behavior analysts. We would love more behavior analysts on our caseload because we know that you guys would understand the treatment and pick up the behaviorism real quick and probably be ideal clients. Either that or the worst. I don't know.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:08

Right, right. Well, I'm sure us at Ascend Behavioral Solutions, we'll be consulting when we have when we have those issues arise. Because man, even just in the last two hours with you and then with Rachel, if if we get clients like this, like clients with certain needs. Yeah. Man, it's just it'd be so much easier to get some insight because they both talked about things I wouldn't even think about.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:30

Absolutely. That's that's the whole thing with uh the conversation with you and Rachel. It's just I would have never thought of that. I would have no, I didn't even know those things happened. Just very, very enlightening. So I like to do this thing at the end here. You may be familiar already, just some closing points before our tagline. So bear with me here. We've I've got solo sex is not a pollutant, especially when effective. Enjoy your dark chocolate intake if so inclined. Embrace love as the fifth function and always analyze responsibly. Nicholas, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:00

Yep, rock on.

SPEAKER_07 1:01:02

Always analyze responsibly.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:05

ABA on tap is recorded live and unfiltered. We're done for today. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. See you next time.