Financial Kinks with Sexpert Emily Morse

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00:25: Hey guys, are you ready for some money rehab?

00:30: Wall Street has been completely upended by an unlikely player. Game stop.

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00:53: You recognize her from Anchoring on CNN, CNBC, and Bloomberg.

00:57: The only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand.

01:01: The cold lap it.

01:03: I don't want to give away any spoilers.

01:05: So all I'll say is that I had a bizarre experience that I was looking to decode.

01:10: And the person who was best suited to decode said experience is my friend who is a sex

01:17: therapist Emily Morse. Are you intrigued? Well, let's get into it. Emily, I am so happy to say this

01:23: welcome to money rehab. So good to be here. Thank you for having me. Congrats on your show and

01:28: all this success. Thank you. Thank you. Well, I feel like I've been on your show and so it's nice to

01:32: have you come on mine and welcome you into my digital home, you know, on the show. Of course,

01:39: you know, that we're really interested in money, but of course how money intersects with all the

01:44: things, politics, relationships, psychology, everything. A few weeks ago we had a

01:49: sugar baby on the podcast to talk about the economics of sugaring and that

01:53: really got us interested in the intersection of sex and money. So you are the

01:57: perfect person to do the sex part because that's not my jam. I mean it is, but not my

02:02: expert jam. So when my producers and I were talking about this, I told them that I had

02:07: someone reach out to me asking me to be their findom and my producers had never heard of that term before.

02:15: So as a sex therapist and overall sex spirit, can you give us the definition?

02:20: Yeah, I mean findom essentially is, I think it's like BDSM, a lot of people know that is like power play,

02:27: dominance and mis-play. So findom is financial domination where this sub is somebody who is looking for,

02:34: for in many cases, we, you know, it's a man in this world where they're looking for someone

02:39: to dominate them financially, meaning they control their finances, they do a budget

02:46: for them. They are, you know, so instead of using ropes or ties or blindfolds, the money

02:53: becomes the factor that they are dominating with it.

02:56: So this guy reached out to me saying he just wanted to put $10,000 in my PayPal account,

03:00: Which is different in nature than some of the other weirdos I've received emails from.

03:06: We've all received some weirdo emails.

03:08: So the ladies in my office said, can I take the $10,000?

03:12: And I was like, listen, I don't want anything to do with this.

03:16: So if you want to reach out, then go for it.

03:19: And at that point, I started getting interested by this.

03:22: This was legit.

03:23: This guy wanted to just give me $10,000.

03:25: He said, no strings attached whatsoever.

03:28: And as we explored it, I was fascinated by this psychology.

03:33: So as a sexist, what is the psychology behind someone who's seeking out a financial dominant?

03:41: Well, first I want to say you'd probably be really good at being a findom because you'd

03:44: be really great at setting their budgets and telling them how they can spend their money

03:48: and how they can't spend their money.

03:49: So they probably would, you would be a natural if you ever decided to get into it.

03:54: But if you think about financial debt, it's sort of a fetish lifestyle like we're saying like it's like dominant submissive play,

03:59: but the reason why it's so arousing is because and there's a few factors.

04:03: It's the surrendering of power.

04:05: It's saying you're going to dominate me, like that's the arousing part.

04:09: And usually I don't speak in genders,

04:10: but we're just gonna say here that it is typically men who do this.

04:13: I'm just gonna say that it's men

04:15: who are told from a young age, we're supposed to be the breadwinners.

04:19: We have the money, we care for everything, and then there's something very arousing about the flip side of that.

04:25: You know, we measure our worth with money

04:27: and then just say, I'm gonna weaponize my money

04:30: and I'm gonna use it as something that's kinky

04:32: and then create this intimacy in a way with somebody

04:36: who is, we're giving up our powers,

04:37: we're giving up our control to somebody.

04:40: For many people, the reason why they access something like both do something like BDSM

04:44: or people know what BDSM is, or PowerPlay

04:47: is because we are in an exchange with somebody

04:49: and we're able to access a part of our emotions that we're not able to otherwise.

04:54: So there's the adrenaline rush.

04:56: There's a lot that happens when we are giving up control

04:59: of something and even though we know it's wrong, we're sort of fetishizing our money.

05:02: If so, there's sort of an addiction

05:04: that some of these people could have over this self-destructive behavior of giving up their money.

05:09: Yeah, I looked this person up because I thought, wait a minute,

05:13: this guy just has 10 grand to casually throw into my PayPal account.

05:18: Like, who is he?

05:19: He must have a lot of money.

05:21: But no, he didn't have a lot of money.

05:23: I looked him up.

05:24: He was like in this random town,

05:26: didn't look like the guy had 10 grand to be just giving to me.

05:31: And so it was a lot of money to him,

05:33: which is not initially what I thought.

05:36: I thought he was just like flush with cash, not the case.

05:39: And there was no sexy stuff involved.

05:42: So the arousal didn't come from ever what?

05:46: Meeting me or?

05:47: The thing is in most of these cases with thin doms and the sub, there's no meeting.

05:52: They don't ever meet.

05:53: It's almost like an intel-finduced psychological torture.

05:58: And I think that a lot of fintoms get into this because the fintoms, the fint subs, it's due to low self-esteem,

06:05: you know, inability to deal with in their normal life about rejection, humiliation.

06:10: It's almost like cuckolding,

06:12: which is another thing that we talk about,

06:14: and men have this fantasy of seeing their wife have sex

06:17: or their partner have sex with somebody else.

06:19: It's almost something happens.

06:21: This is like the understanding of arousal in this moment, the shame and the humiliation

06:29: flips itself and it actually becomes arousing and a turn on.

06:33: The moment he's wearing you the PayPal money.

06:35: He's like, that is a turn on.

06:37: I've just done this exchange that's penetrating to my deep psyche and it's arousing.

06:44: To me, for many, it can be an addiction because a lot of times, they'll do that and they

06:48: feel sort of regret after if it's in a adrenaline and a high and a low. But for some men, because again,

06:54: nothing here is so black and white. For some, it's just, it's an arousal. They have enough money to

07:00: do it. They make sure they don't get into too hot water. Like they're not declaring bankruptcy.

07:04: But they're in a relationship where it's the psychological arousal of feeling humiliated and

07:10: feeling submissive. Maybe every other area in their life, these men are dominating. They have

07:15: the high-powered jobs, they're at home with their wives, they're like doing all of these

07:19: things and they're like, we're there in control.

07:21: And if they can create a situation with just pretty low stakes in the sense of they're

07:26: not going to get an STI or an STD, it's not really cheating, although in some places

07:30: it can be, but it's a psychological exchange that goes out online where they are feeling this deep arousal.

07:35: Gotcha.

07:36: Sue, no, thank you for clarifying and thank you for going there to the actual, like, what

07:40: happens with the physical arousal because I was wondering, you know, if he's transferring

07:45: paypal money to me, is he literally getting hard or having an orgasm or like how is that?

07:51: I can't imagine that being pleasurable, but I suppose it is.

07:55: The thing is a kink. Many of us have kinks. We're into, you know, voyeurism or ex, we want to

08:01: watch people have sex outside or we really are kink, we like wearing certain things in the bedroom

08:06: or we like to sink, think certain thoughts to get us turned on. And so like financial

08:12: domination isn't even really transactional, which is kind of funny to think. It's sort of that

08:17: is the king. So the arousal is the act of them sending the money, but they're not expecting

08:22: anything from you in return. But it's not that any woman can just say, it's not just a woman saying,

08:27: you better give me money or you're an asshole. Like there's a whole art to the form of being a

08:33: dumb, being a fined dumb, being the dominant part of this. What is the art for it? Because I'm

08:37: I'm sure some women are listening like, I want to do it.

08:40: Wait a minute, wait for the fucking catch here.

08:43: I want 10 grand in my account for not ever meeting somebody.

08:46: It's a little bit of like acting.

08:48: You know how to escalate.

08:49: You know how to do the power play.

08:52: Like you're only going to give me 100 now.

08:54: Well, you know, I know you more than that.

08:56: Give me a thousand.

08:57: I mean, you know, and you know, you understand the psychology.

09:00: You mean, maybe you probably need some really great improv.

09:02: And if you were like a phone sex operator and you have taken some improv classes or you and you're something about money,

09:08: that might be the great trifecta there

09:10: of you being an expert in it.

09:11: But it is a practice just like anything else.

09:15: I think it's about understanding psychology,

09:18: understanding the levels of what's gonna get somebody to,

09:22: and being able to go through the motions.

09:25: If you appear and you're like, give me $1,000

09:27: and the guy says, no, you're like, okay,

09:29: but you have to keep playing with him,

09:30: you have to keep messing with him.

09:32: You have to be able to insult somebody,

09:33: you have to be able to literally dominate him and say,

09:36: you're, you know, you're just a, you know, you're whatever you would say.

09:41: I don't know how much do you want me to swear like you're a pussy?

09:43: Go for it, you're a piece of shit.

09:44: Like, give me more money.

09:46: You ask for, I don't know.

09:47: Make sure an asshole, give me money.

09:48: Like if you don't, it could be bribing.

09:50: Like if you don't give me money, I'm going to tell your wife,

09:53: I'm going to tell your kids, I'm going to tell your family.

09:56: I'm going to tell you some casual extortion too.

09:58: It is extortion, but it's like, it's sort of like it's extortion that is,

10:03: Um, consensual. It's like consensual extortion.

10:07: Hold on to your wallet's poison girls. Money rehab will be right back.

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11:40: Now for some more money rehab.

11:42: So have you spoken to women who are just financial dominance

11:46: or are there women who are general dominance who do all of the domination?

11:52: I've spoken to all of them.

11:52: There's dominatrix.

11:53: There are women who are just financial domes.

11:55: And especially during the pandemic,

11:57: when no one could leave their house anyway,

11:58: we saw a rise in fin doms.

12:02: We saw a rise in people being able to do this across all platforms.

12:06: It became more where you thought it was a little bit more private or you had to have a,

12:11: you know, it was a secretive account.

12:13: And you don't want anyone to know.

12:14: Now they have full on like Twitter accounts, Instagram, maybe not Instagram because they're more restrictive about this stuff.

12:20: But yeah, they have full on profiles and they're open about it.

12:24: And the difference is that I think with the lot of dominant nature systems or regular

12:28: dumb, you probably would see them in person.

12:31: You know, it's the picture we have with the woman in the leather boots and the whips and

12:35: humiliating in either way. They're still humiliating their subjects for wherever it could be with pain

12:41: It could be with you know spanking our pain our ropes our chains or it could be with emptying their bank account

12:49: Like getting the access to the bank account. That's that's part of this giving over your passwords

12:55: That's the part of the loss of control too

12:58: It's almost like if someone said to you,

13:00: could you imagine I were giving up your password,

13:02: but it's such this moment of deep,

13:06: of like I can't believe I'm doing this.

13:08: It's like a thrill.

13:09: It's a dream, think of like the things that you've done

13:11: that are so adrenaline seeking things that you,

13:14: for some people it's like jumping off a bridge,

13:16: or it's sky diving, or it's taking risks, getting up in public speaking.

13:21: But for these people, it's for these people

13:25: that engage in this, it's literally like,

13:29: I can't believe I'm doing this.

13:31: I'm giving up my passwords.

13:32: I'm giving up the most part.

13:33: My life could be ruined.

13:35: And yet, at the point of doing it, I am so aroused.

13:40: It's living that intersection of holy shit.

13:43: I'm giving some of my money to like, I did it and that turn on.

13:46: They get turned on, they get aroused.

13:47: It's addictive and they can't stop doing it.

13:50: So what kind of advice would you give someone

13:51: to make sure that they're structuring this relationship to be safe and healthy.

13:57: Like having safe words, maybe that whole,

13:59: I'm thinking of the scene in 50 Shades with the contract.

14:04: I mean, do you even go that far?

14:06: I would say if you're getting into relationship

14:08: with somebody like this and you're giving them

14:10: all of your passwords, all of your money

14:12: that you absolutely should have a contract, you should have a safe word.

14:15: You should, I mean, otherwise this could go get really bad, really fast.

14:19: So my, I'm assuming that yes, have a contract,

14:22: have rules of engagement, check in often.

14:25: We also talked on the show about sugaring.

14:28: I didn't even know that that was a verb or a gerund or whatever you call it.

14:33: We spoke with a woman who calls herself a sugar babe,

14:36: which is also new terminology to me

14:38: because I've only heard this sugar baby idea.

14:40: And when we spoke with her, she said that she considered

14:42: herself in a relationship with her sugar daddies

14:45: and she's only dated sugar daddies, no other guys.

14:49: Is that the norm that really surprised me?

14:52: there is no norm here with that.

14:53: I mean, I think that sugar daddy's,

14:56: she's not dating anyone else and yet, and she's just dating them.

15:00: Well, it depends, what she, yeah, she calls them her boyfriend.

15:02: Well, maybe she's got some intimacy, which she's some intimacy challenges where she's not really looking for a deep emotional connection.

15:08: And to have a man who's taking care of her,

15:11: all of her needs financially might just be enough.

15:14: But I also know some people who are sugar daddy

15:16: is sugar babies and they have a sugar daddy.

15:19: And they actually have a boyfriend home and they just have an arrangement

15:23: with the sugar daddy who pays their rent every month or who buys them school supplies

15:28: or whatever for college or whatever else they need.

15:31: So I think that in these arrangements,

15:33: the main thing is that there's, you know, it's the dominance.

15:37: There's someone in control and there's someone submissive

15:39: and money is the same, money is the factor.

15:41: So I would say that you could call on your boyfriend,

15:43: you could just say you're a sugar daddy,

15:44: you could not tell, I know people who do it,

15:46: they don't tell any of their friends, right?

15:48: They don't even tell their boyfriend sometimes.

15:50: I don't advise that.

15:51: But I think that it's a way that's for some men

15:55: who are in this role, maybe they never had a daughter

15:58: or maybe they had a strain relationship with their daughter

16:00: and they felt that there's some healing thing in here,

16:03: but they also find this person attractive.

16:05: And for some women, maybe they have a father issue,

16:09: father challenges, they find that kind of hot to be taken care of.

16:12: And so it really is, this is where it's a transactional

16:16: consensual relationship where you have a contract. This is what it's about. You're going to pay my rent.

16:21: I'm going to go to the movies with you once a week. You know, I think that every single one of these relationships,

16:25: I think the main factor is that there's money involved and

16:29: there's somebody taking the money. But in the healthiest ones, you really have to walk through what's our contract?

16:35: What's our deliverables? What do we expect? And for some, there's no emotions. For some, there's no sex. for some it's just transactional.

16:43: So I think people have to understand

16:45: like there's not you get to decide.

16:47: If you go into this relationship,

16:48: you get to decide what you want, sort of the world west.

16:50: And all of it's unique, as you say, everything is individual.

16:53: I have been really surprised at the more I've looked

16:56: into sugaring and the economics of sugaring

16:58: and who these women, who these men are, or every permutation in between,

17:03: that a lot of these women are like boss bitches.

17:07: Yeah.

17:08: Lawyers or executives who want to be,

17:11: Sugar babies.

17:12: What?

17:13: Feels really good to be taken care of sometimes.

17:15: It feels good to be in that submissive role

17:18: where you feel that you don't listen.

17:20: It's the same thing for some of these men.

17:22: If you're a boss bitch and you're out there every day,

17:24: you're running your company, you're running your business, you got a lot going on.

17:27: And there's somebody who's gonna take care of you.

17:29: Even if you don't need the money,

17:31: but it's somebody who's just sort of doting on you

17:33: or they are just showing up for you

17:37: and ways that other people in your life aren't.

17:38: And you get to be submissive.

17:40: you get to kind of relax for a minute and be like, okay, babe, you got this?

17:43: Amazing.

17:44: That makes a lot of sense.

17:46: I mean, I'm more submissive to you.

17:47: In my life, being the boss and doing all the things,

17:50: I'm dominant, but like, you get me in the bedroom,

17:52: I'm like, I'm out.

17:53: I'm in this all day.

17:54: Like, I'm active.

17:56: Don't get me wrong, but I don't want to necessarily take control.

17:58: I can tell you what's gonna happen and what we should probably do,

18:00: but then you can take the lead on it.

18:02: And I think that's really common.

18:03: That we don't usually go through life

18:05: in the same state all the time.

18:07: And especially when it comes to sex, sometimes there's this switch.

18:11: Yeah, you and I have talked about this in the past

18:13: and totally I couldn't agree with you more.

18:16: I obviously am a boss bitch or a group of book boss bitch.

18:20: And yet I wanna really be in that feminine energy in my romantic relationship.

18:26: Like I don't want to pay on a first date.

18:29: I don't even wanna look, I don't wanna see the check.

18:32: And that's just my choice.

18:33: Doesn't mean I can't pay for it.

18:34: I can, I can pay for all the meals in the whole restaurant. could probably pay for the restaurant.

18:39: But that's my choice.

18:40: And I don't care what other women wanted to do.

18:42: That's your progative, I think, being the ultimate feminist

18:45: is not telling other women what to do.

18:46: Like you do you, girl.

18:48: But as a sex therapist, what are some of the other common issues you see money play in relationships?

18:54: Money is probably one of the huge factors

18:57: I would say money and kids and sex are three of the main factors that most couples have challenges around.

19:04: And for money, it's because we're not completely honest

19:07: sometimes, we don't disclose if we have debt.

19:11: We don't disclose what we want our aspirations financially.

19:15: We have different views on how we each want to spend our money.

19:19: And we don't talk about this before we get married and commingle our finances.

19:23: I think it also goes back to your family of origin.

19:26: If you grew up in a home where money was tight

19:28: and your parents were much more restrictive,

19:30: and then you're with somebody who's like a big spender and they're always spending money, kind of sort of flippantly.

19:36: And you become a saver,

19:37: there's all these conflicts in the way that we handle money.

19:40: So I think it's becoming,

19:41: being raised with different values around money,

19:44: when you get into a relationship with somebody,

19:46: and we don't often talk about these things before we get married, which is kind of crazy, or get into a relationship,

19:51: that can really be a problem for you, different views, like your partners, splurging on a new car, and you're like,

19:59: but we still need to put away money for the kids' education.

20:01: We haven't talked about any of this.

20:03: So I always recommend to couples

20:04: that these are the things that you need to clear before you move in together.

20:08: What are our values towards money?

20:10: What do we value?

20:12: Do we want to save?

20:13: Do we want to spend?

20:14: Do we want to spend on vacation?

20:15: Some couples say we just want to spend on experiences but not on things, you know?

20:19: It's just really our values around money.

20:24: What recommendations you have for couples

20:27: who need to talk about money issues, especially if they're nervous, which most of them are.

20:32: I think that you can use by three T's conversations,

20:35: an awkward conversation, timing, tone, and turf.

20:37: You wanna have the conversation at the right time.

20:40: It's not when you're hungry and angry

20:42: and lonely and tired and pissed at your partner.

20:45: You wanna do it when it's,

20:47: so the timing is when you're casual, you're hanging out,

20:49: and your tone is light and curious.

20:52: Let's talk about money.

20:53: I realize we've never really had a real conversation about money.

20:56: And the turf is somewhere like not

20:58: when you're sitting down at the kitchen table

21:00: with your money spread out and you're about to like get paid taxes.

21:03: It's like really, really, really hard.

21:05: And I say, I want to talk about our financial situation

21:07: because I realize that lately I know there's some debt.

21:10: We haven't really talked about it.

21:11: And I'm feeling like I would really like to have a growth mindset around money and around connecting with you about money.

21:17: This is not something I've had before.

21:19: And would you be willing to kind of go on a journey with me

21:23: to figure out the healthiest ways for us to be together and have, you know, health finances.

21:31: Well, for today's tip, you can take straight to the bank.

21:35: We've been enjoying reports on money topics

21:38: that live at the intersection of other disciplines

21:41: and don't get a lot of attention like money and sex, money and politics, money and relationships, social justice, and many more.

21:48: If there are any topics that you wanna learn more about,

21:51: DM me on Instagram at Money We Have Show or email us at moneyrehab at knucklelappin.com.

22:02: Moneyrehab is a production of I Heart Radio.

22:05: I'm your host, Nicole Lapin.

22:06: Our producers are Morgan LeVoy and Mike Costa Relle.

22:09: Executive producers are Nikki E. Tor and Will Pearson.

22:12: Our mascots are Penny and Mimzie.

22:15: Huge thanks to OG Moneyrehab team Michelle Lans for her development work, Catherine Law

22:21: for her production and writing magic and brand and dicker

22:24: for his editing, engineering, and sound design.

22:27: And as always, thanks to you for finally investing in yourself

22:31: so that you can get it together and get it all.

22:34: Yes, man, my money, my money, my money