Volume Two · Season One · Episode Three

Intention, dignity, ethics, and the possibilities of relating.

A Few Hills Ahead of Schedule

What if an agreement could help bring an intention into the world?

We were building a foundation. The early episodes of To Her began exploring relational power, communication, assent, and exchange. Alongside To Him, To Them, the Primer, and the developing Assention manuscript, they were part of a larger journey toward increasingly broad questions about how we relate.

Then circumstances changed the route.

The accelerated opening of To America brought questions of sovereignty and collective behavior forward. Work on audiences, platforms, and hypothetical encounters also changed the project’s relationship with its own development. In this episode, the magical school bus jumps several hills ahead.

The destination is some of the deeper intention behind the work: the creative possibilities of agreements, the ethical purpose of examining relationships, and the dignity of people whose needs may be easier to judge than to understand.

This is an opening encounter with subjects planned for later development. It brings personal reflection and policy advocacy into the conversation without asking the listener to adopt either position as a condition of continuing the journey.

Law as Magic: Giving Intention a Form

The first turn is toward law as “magic.”

Consider the work involved in making something happen. We name an intention, describe a desired outcome, arrange conditions, and try to orient our actions toward it. Business planning and engineering approach that work in their own ways. Creative practice and the language of manifestation can approach it through a different sensibility.

The episode uses “magic” to explore that artistry: words and symbols can become part of the conditions through which people act. An agreement gives an intention a form that can be revisited, shared, and recognized.

This is also a way into the purpose of Assention. The tools invite people to consider what they want to create together and how they might support its becoming real. Their value need not depend entirely on legal enforcement.

A Stop Sign at the Intersection

Imagine a small community facing repeated accidents at an intersection. The episode offers a thought experiment: what might change if someone placed a recognizable stop sign there, even without the machinery of legal enforcement behind it?

The sign gives attention something to encounter. It asks for a pause.

An ending provision in a relationship agreement can serve a similar purpose. A previously discussed pause, conversation, or opportunity for counseling may give people something to remember at a difficult moment. It cannot guarantee participation or an outcome. Its intended function is to interrupt an unexamined rush into the intersection.

Intention includes preventing what we do not want. The relationship we hope to create and the harm we hope to avoid both deserve language.

Mortality, Vulnerability, and Dignity

The next turn is personal. “I am dying” is immediately explained as a reflection on aging and the finite course of life—not an announcement of a cancer diagnosis.

The speaker describes a sense of experience and completeness, and a changing relationship with time. Endless new horizons give way to more deliberate questions about where to place energy, attention, and resources.

From that reflection comes an introduction to a policy position: advocacy for death with dignity and greater individual choice around the end of life. The fuller argument is reserved for later. Here, the concern is how empathy, suffering, sovereignty, and dignity belong within the project’s understanding of relating.

The natural, business, and divine domains return as interpretive lenses. The speaker contrasts bodily suffering and institutional costs with an aspiration toward more compassionate, intentional possibilities. This is the episode’s ethical and philosophical framing of the question.

Why Ethics Was Here from the Beginning

A project about relationships inevitably encounters how people use one another.

The episode returns to instrumentalization and to experiences of unethical behavior in professional and personal life. Its concern with the Wolf and the Snake belongs to that inquiry: how do coercion, deception, unmet needs, and concealed intentions shape what happens between people?

The ambition is modest in scale but serious in purpose—to contribute, through understanding and practice, to a little less suffering and a little more intentional relating.

Compensated Relationships: Two Opening Arguments

The second policy position concerns legalizing consensual, compensated adult romantic or sexual relationships. The episode introduces a positive case and a negative case.

The positive case begins with sovereignty and opportunity. Adults have needs, abilities, time, and resources. The speaker asks what possibilities could become available if certain exchanges could be addressed openly and intentionally.

The negative case concerns behavior the proposed change might reduce. The episode suggests that economic need and sexual frustration can contribute to deception and other harmful conduct. Bringing existing exchanges into the open might create opportunities for greater honesty. That is a proposition for further examination, rather than a completed demonstration of the effects of a particular policy.

The phrase “relational entrepreneurship” points toward the broader question: what kinds of mutually understood arrangements might sovereign adults choose, and what would make those arrangements worthwhile to the people involved?

The Needs Beneath the Judgment

The discussion recalls the earlier story of an elderly man judged by his son for spending money on a woman. Before issuing a verdict, what might the son have learned by asking about loneliness, loss, companionship, or the needs his father was trying to meet?

A second example considers the economics already present in dating. One person may be weighing the opportunity cost of time away from highly paid work. Another may be quietly worried about a car payment. Those circumstances are part of the encounter whether or not either person mentions them.

The episode asks what becomes visible when those realities can be discussed. Its deliberately irreverent “€50” phrase brings the contrast between euphemism and explicit exchange into the conversation.

Returning with a Wider View

The detour reveals some distant destinations without committing every following episode to policy debate. We will return to the tools, language, and practical questions of relationships with more of the project’s larger purposes in view.

Relationships rarely unfold along a perfectly orderly syllabus. The world around them keeps arriving.

What could you name, discuss, or put into words that might make a better outcome more possible?

Show Notes & Chapters

Chapter times follow the supplied YouTube transcript.

  • 00:00 — Welcome back: an unplanned shift in the project
  • 01:32 — The magical school bus jumps ahead
  • 02:07 — Relationship agreements and law as magic
  • 02:57 — The stop sign analogy and ending provisions
  • 03:50 — Preventing bad outcomes and orienting intention
  • 05:44 — Introducing three heavier topics
  • 06:57 — Mortality, experience, and a sense of completeness
  • 07:53 — Introducing advocacy for death with dignity
  • 10:05 — Unethical behavior and the project’s ethical purpose
  • 10:50 — Positive and negative cases for compensated relationships
  • 12:19 — Aging, empathy, needs, and dating economics
  • 14:09 — Closing the detour

Content note: Explicit language; discussion of mortality, suicide and assisted dying, and compensated adult romantic or sexual relationships.

Full Reading Transcript

Prepared from the supplied YouTube transcript with punctuation, paragraphing, and evident transcription errors corrected. Filler and immediate repetitions have been lightly reduced. The speaker’s positions and informal voice are retained. This is an edited reading transcript, not an independently audio-verified verbatim record. “Assention” and the “€50” phrase have been normalized using the supplied project context and earlier transcript.

0:00 | Welcome Back and Context Shift

Welcome to episode three of volume two to her, a podcast by Intend to Relate. We are picking up this podcast after some weeks without a new episode. There's been a lot going on and in fact we are today going to be part of that a lot going on in the little Intend to Relate developing authored project universe. We are in the Intend to Relate framework outside of our plan. We wanted to start building a very solid foundation beyond you know the first and second series beyond the primer through Assention that manuscript and beyond within men to him within women to her and began going into that meta with to them and then we were going to be getting larger and more broad in our topics.

However, one of the triggers recently was this issue of us moving into an accelerated unplanned season 1 of volume 8 to America based upon a an encounter with a certain very unacceptable form of racism here in the United States. Then there's been other factors. We've been studying very closely this issue of audiences, hypothetical audiences, crowds as clouds, the relationship with a corporation operating a huge social media machine. And we've really changed in all honesty what we intend to do with this project. So shackles are off. I'm going to save that conversation except to say this is going to be an interesting conversation.

1:32 | Jumping Ahead in the Framework

It's going to get to certain points that were way ahead of us, but ultimately were some of the most important points in this entire wide thing that we're doing with Intend to Relate. So, with that said, ladies, I don't want to waste your time. I want to get very straight to it. We are going to be taking our magic school bus, accelerating, going straight to the hill, and jumping forward many hills ahead of where we were supposed to be. And we're going to be landing straight at one of my truest interests in relationship agreements and especially the intention of the Assention branded form of tools that we are developing.

2:07 | The Purpose of Relationship Agreements

The purpose is not law as rule. The purpose is more law as magic. Think about a scenario where you have an intention and you want it to come true. What might you do? Well, if you are in America and you've been here for the last few decades, maybe you've heard of things like manifestation and the secret and the various self-help methodologies. And maybe you just went to business school or engineering school and you've been trained in breaking things down, planning them out, and making them happen. It overlaps. It all overlaps. But the magic approach comes with a little bit more of a creative play to it.

A different form of artistry than let's say an engineering approach. But it's still it's all a little magic. Lawyers know this. At least some lawyers know this. There is a magic to the law.

2:57 | The Stop Sign Analogy

So let's say that intention a small rural community. They don't have much money. They don't have much of a government. There's a there's a cross intersection crossing that does not have a light or anything. And there's accidents there all the time. People are getting killed. They say, "What are we going to do?" One guy says, "I know exactly what we're going to do. Stop signs. Even if we don't have the law, you know, we're not going to go there. We're just going to stick one or two in the ground. Think about that. A stop sign, no legal authority, just a symbol on a stick in the ground.

And what happens? The numbers at least go down, right? Even if it's not law, just the symbol being there. Hey, somebody might not be paying attention to see it. And they get encouraged to slow down. You know, in the relationship agreement context, we have that concept of the ending addendum, you know, or an ending agreement, ending provision that says this is what we're going to do. 30-day, you know, cool off period, go to counseling. We know that's not law. We know people may not do it, but maybe that'll stop people rushing into an unguarded intersection.

That's the intention because there's a magic to that as well.

3:50 | Prohibitions and Manifestation Technologies

Sometimes the intention isn't just wanting this beautiful relationship of your dreams or manifesting the new job or whatever. Sometimes the intention is to avoid a bad outcome. It doesn't sound so much like I'm going to write that down. It doesn't feel good. The law does that all the time. That's part of the magic law is writing down prohibitions to try to stop bad outcomes. So, I wanted you to see the point on that was, you know, we really, I think we've all, if you've stuck with us and even maybe started reading some of the primer and, you know, or listening to some of the chapters that have been released of Assention pre-publication, you start to get this initial turnoff to these agreement concepts is based upon not really thinking about what we're saying with what the difference between rules binding and creative structure creating meaning.

And here I'm showing you for me personally, moreover, it is magic. In fact, I'll be honest, not a lot of people know this. I've actually been trained in three or I've gone through programs, I should say, in three different American manifestation technologies. And when I say that, I mean, you know, these kind of self-help programs are all about making it come true in very interesting ways. I don't necessarily believe it's magic. I believe, well, first of all, ask and you shall receive, very simple. But I believe it's about working with your brain, working with your mind creatively and making sure that all the parts of you or as many as possible are oriented toward your intention.

It's the same thing with these kind of relationship agreements. So there I gave you one of the not so big but kind of big reveals that wasn't really going to be gotten into till a little later after the foundations and the technical and the practical was kind of in place. But I gave you some magic, right? And I'm going to in this conversation not only give you some magic, I'm going to give you something really real next, some vulnerability, but also related to one of the fundamental policies I'm interested in in this project by the time we get actually to volume 8 to America.

And there's going to be another policy after that that is also a very challenging policy and I'm presenting it to you in this context intentionally as an advocate for it.

5:44 | Three Heavy Topics Outline

Now, you may recall since episode one, I feel like it was clear we were intending to give you value such as little things like the three-axis power description. I think a lot of you saw what we were doing there was insightful into the female experience and trying to help or at least offering something you could take or leave to help. And there is more of our work similar to that ahead. And today I'm giving you some heavy topics, truth, and something to think about, though there isn't necessarily a tool to deal with it. First, I'm going to talk about death and a policy.

Second, I'm going to talk about evil and the ethical goal of the Intend to Relate project. Finally, number three, I'm going to tell you about, don't get angry with me when I say this, it's funny and it's true. I'm going to tell you about the €50 suck and fuck. And I'm going to explain to you why I believe relational work compensated should be legalized and that a whole lot of evil and suffering in the United States could be alleviated by simply bringing what's happening under the table above board. Well, let's get right into it.

6:57 | Facing Mortality and Completeness

Ladies, I am dying. I'm dying and I'm okay with that. I'm dying right now and I know it. Now, when I say that, to be honest, I don't have some cancer diagnosis or anything like that. That's so there was a little shock value there. First, I'm referring to it just in the general sense that we're all dying as we live. It's ahead. It's part of the aging process. It's what it is. And also in my life, I know with where I'm at with age and the experiences I've had that I am over that certain hill, you know, where it's not so much endless horizons and new beginnings.

It actually becomes kind of a very practical I only have so much time and I don't want to waste that energy and money right now on a new horizon. I think I'm going to do this. I've learned that lesson and I know what I want and need. And the other aspect of it is I feel very complete. I have no bucket list. I've done so much amazing things. I suffered a little bit at times. But all in all, I am experienced. I have gone deep and I'm very happy to do this simple life that I've grown into.

7:53 | Advocating for Death with Dignity

My ladies, with all that said, one of the policies that we were going to be advancing in the later stages of Intend to Relate was going to be advocating for death with dignity. Basically, you know, the right to suicide or the right to assisted suicide, death with dignity. Part of the hope of relating is growing in empathy and understanding individual sovereignty, individual dignity. And I believe without going into more detail on the argument, which isn't ripe. I wanted to let you know before I get to our later topics that I am dying and I want to be able to die if I have the opportunity at the right time as opposed to in the natural course.

In the natural world, if you have to die, you have to go with a natural process and that can be a terrible thing. Think about those generations of women giving birth under some horrible circumstances sometimes. Now, sometimes it was very natural and very easy. I don't know about that stuff. I haven't studied midwifery, but I understand sometimes it was. And I think there was a lot of pain and horrible things as well along the way. And thank God we now have pain medicine and all the different things that make it a little bit easier as I understand it.

I don't really understand it. I'm just using the analogy because I hope it's persuasive. Similarly, I think it is a tragedy that we have to either suffer when we wouldn't want to or that people do things such as taking their life without dignity. They have to do it in a shameful way. Now, we're not there. I'm being vulnerable by letting you know what that I feel my age. That I feel death coming even though I'm still relatively young. That I feel like I could very much so see myself later in life saying I have this diagnosis or these circumstances.

I'd like to talk about, you know, a certain outcome with my doctor, but the fact is in the United States of America, we do not have that as a policy. We're not free. In fact, we are stuck in the natural world with suffering and the business world where the hospitals and the insurance companies are racking up bills. I actually believe that death with dignity, the right to choose in accordance with your will when to exit life, that is divine intention. That is a blessing. That is the divine world in this context. I want us to rise from the natural.

I want us to rise from the business and to also have the divine world. Ladies, I'm going to move on from that. But that was to create a space for me to say what I will say at the end of this discussion with respect to the €50 suck and fuck ethics and evil ladies.

10:05 | Confronting Evil in Relations

I a fundamental reason I started this project. While it seems, you know, love relationships, you know, at the very beginning I was talking about instrumentalization. I over a number of years both professionally in business and law encountered a lot of evil in this world. People doing evil things. I also saw over the course of many years evil occurring in the world of relations and from my perspective obviously I don't see male evil as much. I'm not in the room. I might have heard some of the stories but I saw some evil amongst women regularly and what we're going to call that is you know evil not evil you know some of it was evil but you know a lot of let's just say unethical behavior and that's part of why that's built into what we're trying to do here too.

It really is about making the world a better place to the little extent that we can try.

10:50 | Positive and Negative Cases for Compensation

I believe in both a positive and a negative case for the legalization of compensated romantic or sexual relationships. A negative and a positive case. And the positive case is the fact that we are sovereign individuals. A woman is a sovereign individual. And that is an economic opportunity in a world that's changing. There are people who are suffering who need and then there's already people who are doing all this and it solves some problems. The negative case is that sexual frustration and economic need lead to snaky and wolfy behavior. I'm not going to go through the full case.

You know, that's not what I intended today. But the idea there is it could contribute to some reduction of bad behavior by bringing that which is in the dark into the light. I am not asking for you to join me in those policy positions today. However, now when we move forward and we look more and more at the transactional world and these agreements and what people are actually doing and the wolf and the snake and the techniques, you might see some additional relationships. You may see some opportunities for relational entrepreneurship and you may see that intending to relate as sovereign individuals in this day and age can be a lot of different things.

People should have those rights. And for the final note, I want to bring this death and compensatory relationship together.

12:19 | Aging, Needs, and Real-World Dating Economics

And that is people age and getting older is hard. And getting older, let's say when you're sick and maybe your spouse has died is hard. Getting older may be a little easier. Remember in season two we had the story of the elderly man whose son caught him spending money on a woman and called him a pervert without going into any inquiry regarding where his suffering was coming from, what needs he was trying to fulfill with no empathy. But let's close on some real talk. I've said America is business. All business. Here's the facts. I'm already talking the to him people about this.

clearly something we're going to cover and it's all part of the discussion in our world today including among a number of dating coaches which we are not. This is about something different. There is an economics involved here that can benefit all sides by that. Consider this. One person makes a lot of money whatever they do. Another person is their date and makes decent money. Now this is a simplified example and I'm just trying to show the point. Now, what if the one who makes a lot of money, he or she has this thought all the time when they're going on first dates or second dates, how much, oh man, if this is a bad night, you know, I have this work I wanted to do and you know, maybe they could have made a couple of grand in the same number of hours that they'd be on this date.

You know, let's say they got an hourly rate or something like that, right? And let's say this other person going on the date doesn't tell anybody about it, but is actually really stressed out with a cash flow situation. you know, they're going to be late on their car note and their credit is so important to them and it's one of those situations where they don't they're gonna have to ask somebody but they don't know what to do. They don't have a solution for it. Now, we all know that these things are already going on. Sugar babies and you know just my love language is gifts, right?

This stuff is going on. You see that there is not just a problem to solve, there is an opportunity. Ladies, I wanted to present that because that was going to be one of the big picture points now that we're into some heavy stuff already.

14:09 | Closing Remarks and Final Thoughts

That's what happens in relationships as we all know. It doesn't just go a simple trajectory. We got to deal with the world all around us and all the drama as we try to maintain our relationship agreements. That's all I have to say for today. We're not going to be sticking to the policy points. But now that you know, as you continue to listen in, you'll see that now that we have some of these heavier boundary conditions and distant policy situations, maybe it now makes a little bit more sense. I think you've always known though that I was going to be talking about things like a farm.

If anybody knows what a farm is, you know money was getting involved. Now, did I finish the story of the €50 suck and fuck? I can't remember if I did. I can keep talking about it. Oh, I think that's enough of it. I think just the phrase €50 suck and fuck is so funny when I first heard it over there. I mean, it's so perfect. It's just I mean that's how they are. So on business. We'll leave it at that. Y'all take good care of yourselves intentionally and be good to each other intentionally.

Intention and assent; creative structure; relationship agreements; ending addenda; the natural, business, and divine domains; individual sovereignty; instrumentalization; the Wolf and the Snake; empathy; relational entrepreneurship; the future self.

Explore the developing project at intend2relate.com, and more writings and episode articles at Intend to Relate on Ghost.

Join the Conversation

Where could a little more honesty—or a deliberately placed “stop sign”—change what happens in a relationship?

Questions, thoughts, and friendly provocations are welcome. You retain your judgment and your freedom to accept, reject, or examine the ideas offered here.

About Intend to Relate

Intend to Relate is a philosophical and educational project developing tools, language, and practices for more intentional relationships. Through books, podcasts, agreements, and creative exploration, it examines how sovereign individuals relate to themselves, one another, and the wider world.

Take good care of yourselves intentionally, and be good to each other intentionally.