The power of consent (18+) - guest Morgan Grey

Jenn wilson 

NOTE: References to kink and BDSM in this episode.

"Consent and communication aren’t just for the bedroom—they’re the foundation of healthy workplaces, relationships, and businesses."— Morgan (The Lady Grey)(she/they)

Jenn Wilson is joined by guest Morgan (The Lady Grey)

Morgan, or 'The Lady Grey' is a soft-power strategist, erotic educator, and leadership skills trainer devoted to systems that seduce, support, and sustain.

Episode Overview

In this episode of Irregular Humans, Jenn chats with Morgan (aka Lady Grey), a project management veteran turned educator, about the surprising parallels between BDSM, polyamory, and business. They explore how concepts like consent, aftercare, and nonviolent communication can transform leadership, teamwork, and entrepreneurial life. From psychological safety to burnout prevention, this conversation is packed with insights for anyone seeking healthier, more sustainable ways to work and live.

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Connect with Morgan (The Lady Grey)

Website: https://theladygrey.xyz https://z-twist.com

Instagram: The Lady Grey (@theriggingcaptain)

FL: TheLadyGrey

Bluesky: DnDomme.bsky.social

About Morgan (The Lady Grey):

Morgan, or 'The Lady Grey' is a soft-power strategist, erotic educator, and leadership skills trainer devoted to systems that seduce, support, and sustain. Blending kink wisdom, feminist theory, and trauma-informed leadership, she helps people reclaim authentic power and explore authority without artifice. With a background in programme management, DEI (Top 50 award winner), and polyamory community organizing, she brings clarity, emotional literacy, and structure to every space she enters. Whether designing obedience rituals or guiding business leaders through burnout, her presence invites transformation rooted in consent, curiosity, and radical self-possession.

Episode Takeaway

Boundaries, consent, and care aren’t optional—they’re essential. Whether you’re leading a team, running a business, or managing relationships, these principles help create trust, prevent burnout, and foster authentic connection.

Further Resources: links to offers from Irregular that are relevant to the episode

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Map My Month Method

More about this episode:

The Intersection of Kink and Business: How BDSM and polyamory skills translate into workplace success.

Dominance Redefined: Why true leadership isn’t about control—it’s about clarity and respect.

Aftercare for Leaders: Prevent burnout by tending to your own needs as well as your team’s.

Nonviolent Communication: A tool for dismantling unhealthy hierarchies and building psychological safety.

Practical Tips: Managing energy, setting boundaries, and creating sustainable work practices.

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Season 1 Episode 20

Transcript

End Time: 00:29:02.339

Jenn Wilson: Hi everyone and welcome to today's episode of the irregular humans. Podcast with me. Jenn Wilson, also known as Irregular Jen. My guest today is Morgan, also known as the Lady Grey, and she is a projects and Systems person.

Jenn Wilson: and

Jenn Wilson: she's going to talk to us about Bdsm, so there's an irregular starting point to introduce someone. So, Morgan, tell us about you and your irregular journey.

Jenn Wilson: What are you up to? What's going on.

Lady Grey: Hi! Thanks for having me on

Lady Grey: so as like a very brief recap of my stuff. I've spent 20 years in project management, and very much in that systems, thinking

Lady Grey: Being able to see everything from, like, you know, workflow through a physical office through to digital ones.

Lady Grey: and I got into Kink about 13 years ago.

Lady Grey: Around the time I got into polyamory as well.

Lady Grey: So the past decade and a bit I've been very much observing, like all of that that's happening at the same time.

Lady Grey: Sorry. There's a motorbike passing very loudly.

Jenn Wilson: The sound system that that we're in means that we I'm not hearing that so far away.

Lady Grey: So yes. One of the things that I started to notice is how much the skills that that we

Lady Grey: adopt through polyamory, through Bdsm. etc, are applicable to the workplace, and kind of vice versa, as well.

Lady Grey: So it's

Lady Grey: I took the skills from the London polyamory group that that we have with the discord and all of that stuff. And I started teaching these 2 actual business owners several years ago.

Lady Grey: You know.

Lady Grey: being open, honest, and ethical with your communication to your team leads to greater psychological safety within the workplace. And it kind of occurred to me I could do the opposite as well.

Lady Grey: So I've started doing what I call the Lady Grey talks which are

Lady Grey: so many different talks about

Lady Grey: how to apply well, a. How to be more dominant.

Lady Grey: and the different ways that that and looks like.

Lady Grey: because everybody thinks you know, dominance is about like the latex and the cracking of the web. But it's not

Lady Grey: a lot of the times. It can just be a very firm. No, I have told you I don't want to do, Xyz. If you need that done, we can find somebody else to do it.

Lady Grey: And I would argue, a good type of dominance is like that rather than yelling at people and expecting them to do what you told them to.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah, yeah.

Lady Grey: So I've taken all of that. I've developed these these various little modules and things.

Lady Grey: I've got 6 archetypes that I talk about in terms of like

Lady Grey: what dominance is, and it's everything from like, you know, the goddess and the queen, the typical ones you see through to like the schoolgirl who's a little bit cheeky and just gets away with things.

Lady Grey: And

Lady Grey: with these chats I've already been signed up by Praxiom to give one. So Praxiom is in California, and they do like digital education for kink and sex positive spaces. I initially went to them with suggestions about like the polyamory stuff, because I've been doing that so much longer, and they're like no San Francisco. We already have all of the polyamory talks.

Lady Grey: So I gave him like this other list that I'd been working on like, very basically like, just

Lady Grey: what is this intersection here? And they're like, love that one.

Lady Grey: As that's November.

Lady Grey: And yeah, just kick this off like properly.

Lady Grey: Last week, the week before.

Jenn Wilson: And it's going brilliantly. So I, okay, so I'm going to back up a bit for the listeners of this podcast. That are not familiar with

Jenn Wilson: polyamory, Bdsm dominance, etc. And I don't. I mean, like, obviously, we could spend the whole, the whole podcast, episode talking about definitions of those things. And I don't want to do that.

Lady Grey: I want to do that.

Jenn Wilson: But I think

Jenn Wilson: that there's something brilliant about. And actually, it's very core to what? Because I'm as you know, with us, how we know each other. I'm polyamorous, too, and there's networks for that sort of thing, and it's through ethical non-monogamy and the consent that goes with that and understanding the consent that people who practice Bdsm

Jenn Wilson: do the different models they use like traffic lights and save words. And some of those things that people use, how you can apply those in everyday life. Actually, you know, you don't have to be in a kinky sex situation to be in situations where you want to

Jenn Wilson: hold your boundaries really, clearly and work out who's in control of the situation and who isn't. And you know those kinds of things that are going on in a kinky sex scene are things that go on in everyday life all the time, but we don't

Jenn Wilson: make them conscious, because

Jenn Wilson: if you get those things wrong in a Bdsm sex scene. Someone's going to get badly hurt, either psychologically or physically, or possibly both, whereas in everyday life you don't think that they are, do you? You know, you're kind of like, oh, yeah, we'll just carry on. And it's just life. And actually, we do hurt each other all the time, don't we?

Lady Grey: Yeah.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah. So I'm just wondering if you could sort of say a little bit for the people who, without kind of getting into defining what polyamory, ethical, non-monogamy and Bdsm are.

Jenn Wilson: Just say a little bit about that. You know how these, what these things are, what the things in those things are that apply to

Jenn Wilson: daily life, working life, business, life.

Lady Grey: So polyamory is like having multiple loves, you know. It's not necessarily marriages or anything like that. But it's being open to those additional connections.

Lady Grey: Sometimes sexual, sometimes not like. It's all very focused on the individual connections between them. And one of the things that we can see from that is that if you have clients, for instance, you can't treat them all as the same thing. So having those skills of being able to figure out and have those discussions of what is it that you need? What is it that I need like that is wonderful in contract negotiation, for example?

Lady Grey: Bdsm bondage dominance Sadomasochism, that kind of thing.

Lady Grey: I do love me ropes

Lady Grey: But with that there is again this focus on like consent as we've spoken about on safety particularly, and again of of

Lady Grey: ensuring well.

Lady Grey: the biggest part that I absolutely love is aftercare, you know. So after you've had a particularly intense scene. Well, not even a particularly intense one. Just a scene.

Lady Grey: you know that you get your cuddles. You get your chocolates like a bit of a sugary drink, just to bring you back to being able to operate again. And with that one that very much reflects some of the agile work that I do, wherein every time there is a win for a team, you have to celebrate that.

Lady Grey: And make sure that everybody is like, at the same point of being rewarded for their work, and

Lady Grey: being told that they've done such a good job.

Lady Grey: So yeah, like, there's all of these parallels between the 2.

Lady Grey: And obviously, you know, there's a lot of there's a lot of Ds

Lady Grey: personalities, especially higher up in companies. So like this.

Jenn Wilson: Being dominant and submissive.

Lady Grey: Hmm, hmm.

Jenn Wilson: Okay. And and I think you know, people can think, can't they, of people in their lives who are just naturally

Jenn Wilson: dominant, naturally like to control, like to take a lead, like to set the agenda, like to drive things forward, and submissive people, being people who prefer to

Jenn Wilson: have some guidance, have some support, have some direction. What way they're going be part of being, you know, being supported and taken along a journey with other people rather than

Jenn Wilson: going back. We're going this way. It's that is that difference, isn't it? And and I guess, even if you're not into Bdsm, you can recognize those those personality types.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah.

Jenn Wilson: So say more about the Ds thing that you were going to say.

Lady Grey: So

Lady Grey: with the Ds thing. For example, let's talk about how that would look in a scene. So let's say that a dominant comes in and they're like, right, I wanna tie you up. I want to hit you with things. And then we're gonna do Xyz

Lady Grey: and the submissive then gets to feed into that with like, well, I don't particularly want to be hit with like a flogger or a paddle, but I would like a good spanking.

Lady Grey: The way that this is reflected in business is, you know, the CEO, or whoever comes in. They're like right. We are going to make this thing.

Lady Grey: and then like let's say that

Lady Grey: hate to throw it out there, but new AI tool, and

Lady Grey: what they then do will oh, what they will then do is turn around to the engineering team and be like, how do we do this? The engineering team gets to set like, okay.

Lady Grey: we have this much resource we can do. Let's say 4 days a week. On this we have one day where we need to actually do meetings and things. And it's that negotiation of how much energy is put in, what does reward look like on the back end? And the whole thing is about again, communication, and ensuring that your people are good.

Jenn Wilson: Hmm.

Lady Grey: Oh, one of the talks that I'm putting together for people is dominance meets nonviolent communication

Lady Grey: because one of the things that in business, especially there is this perceived hierarchy.

Lady Grey: So the people at the top of the ladder are more important somehow.

Lady Grey: and one of the things I tried to get across to people is, no, no, no, you wouldn't be able to do any of this without the people on the floor like.

Jenn Wilson: But the whole team is important. The whole. Yeah, it's 1 big machine.

Lady Grey: Through teaching Ctos Cfos, etc. How to

Lady Grey: talk to people, because one of the the most amazing things that I've learned is that a lot of

Lady Grey: a lot of people at that level are very ingrained in their ways of communication.

Lady Grey: And it's not always very healthy. So yeah.

Lady Grey: nonviolent communication very much helps with that. It's not the be all and end all. But it's very good.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah. Yeah. And

Jenn Wilson: again, not everyone's going to know what nonviolent communication is. I think I'll just put a link in the show notes for that, because it's a big one to explain. But it is consensual way of communicating, really, isn't it? And you know, and of not telling people what to do but or telling people that they're bad or wrong.

Jenn Wilson: But going when this happens, this is how I feel, and

Jenn Wilson: you know, how are you feeling? And how do we make this work together? Yeah, yeah, basically, yeah, absolutely. And so then then, in terms of your business, which is only brand new as the Lady Grey, and you're already having this phenomenal success. And I guess it's partly that thing that people say of of you know. Find your niche

Jenn Wilson: and.

Lady Grey: Oh, nice!

Jenn Wilson: Really stick to your niche. But actually.

Jenn Wilson: I've been thinking about this, because, like.

Jenn Wilson: I think, sometimes, niches can be inauthentic like, it's, you know. Oh, right? Okay, I'm going to niche into. I'm going to be the person who talks about this one thing

Jenn Wilson: for this one type of client, and that can be quite limiting, whereas when it's coming from an authentic place which it is with you of your lived experience, your passion for the experiences that you've had, and the things that you've learned from them, from your Bdsm and polyamory life and bringing that into this intersection with work. It's not niching. It's

Jenn Wilson: it's just following your passion, following your heart, isn't it?

Jenn Wilson: Yeah.

Lady Grey: Well, the the things that I've discovered through like the past 20 years

Lady Grey: is that the inauthentic niche comes when people start from that point. And they're like, Okay, I am going to find these businesses. I'm going to teach them this and this, whereas with the lady Grey stuff like, I I tripped into this accidentally by coming at it from the other side. You know.

Lady Grey: But and one of the the people that I was speaking to

Lady Grey: 2, 3 weeks ago in like a marketing thing. Very much said that, you know she tried

Lady Grey: so she never like aimed to have the the the business that she has. I'm not gonna like talk too much about it. Just in case because we're on the 18 plus.

Lady Grey: And

Lady Grey: instead of aiming for that, it's that that is the thing that arose from the work that she was already doing. And it's the same in Bdsm and Polyamory

Lady Grey: like, I was already doing a lot of the work. And it's just a case of Oh.

Lady Grey: I could turn this into an actual thing.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah.

Lady Grey: So.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah, yeah.

Jenn Wilson: So the talks that you're doing for Praxis.

Jenn Wilson: Is, that.

Lady Grey: Yes. Yeah.

Lady Grey: Axiom, Yeah, day. Once they wanted emotional labor and erotic authority.

Lady Grey: I've just got my little notion up on the side here. So I've offered them

Lady Grey: exclusive access for that talk until after the presentation. But that's gonna happen in November.

Lady Grey: And it's why

Lady Grey: being in charge means tending to the inner lives of your people with Kink as a guide.

Lady Grey: it's about ensuring that dominants and tops. They also get the aftercare that they need. And it's

Lady Grey: bit more of an an advanced course.

Lady Grey: but yeah, like a lot of the time. People just need to be reminded of these things. You know.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah, absolutely. So that that thing of dominance and tops, though, so that the D, the people, the ones who like the control.

Jenn Wilson: also need the aftercare. So you talked about aftercare. So this is like someone's done an intense Bdsm scene. There's been, you know, Hitty things and and painy things, because that's what someone enjoys and that and it's intense, physically intense. And they're feeling all kinds of a way.

Jenn Wilson: And so you don't just finish a scene and go. Thanks. Bye, you know, or let's get on with the dishes, or whatever you then spend time going, are we okay? And the tendency in Bdsm is that's very focused, isn't it? Around the the submissive person or the the masochist person, the person that's

Jenn Wilson: been done to, rather than the person that's done the doing.

Jenn Wilson: And

Jenn Wilson: so what you're talking about here is the importance of taking care of the people that are doing the doing as well.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah. And I think again, that's the lesson for life, isn't it? You know of, like those of us that are. If you're running your own business. You know you're constantly doing the do, you know? And and you were. And if you're running a purpose-led business where it's something where you're helping people, and you're caring for people, and you're delivering a service because you're passionate about that.

Jenn Wilson: It's really easy, isn't it, to get stuck in a place of

Jenn Wilson: right. I've got to help everyone else. I've got to respond to every call. I've got to take care of everyone else's needs and just never taking care of your own.

Lady Grey: Yeah, and constantly saying yes to everything that comes up because you never know where the next like client is going to be and obviously in business that leads to Burnout, which is that side of you know.

Lady Grey: Dom Drop, which is after a scene like you've been particularly intense. And then the next day you feel like shit like you. You barely want to get out of bed. Just your entire body is just. Oh, I'm so done.

Jenn Wilson: Because of all of that adrenaline and excitement. And yeah, and like, you know, again in life parallels, you know, you could see it with, like.

Jenn Wilson: I know, when I've like built up to a big launch in my business, and I've been working on it for months weeks. It's finally there the thing's launched.

Jenn Wilson: and and now you've got to deliver it. But you've got to deliver it from this place. If I've worked so hard to get it here and get all these people in and buying it, and now got nothing left.

Jenn Wilson: So yeah, have you got any sort of like tips for how? For? How people can manage that, and like that may come from Bdsm or from Polyamory, or from or from your project management side of things, how people can kind of manage, the energy and the focus and the balance of that.

Lady Grey: So with regards to that, you know, doing doing release thing.

Lady Grey: recognizing your roles at any given point, is also going to be very useful. So I mean, one of the things I think I've I've spoken to you about is that I'm no longer

Lady Grey: in project management as a business owner. I'm now in sales. I don't have that skill set. What am I doing.

Jenn Wilson: Hmm.

Lady Grey: I think

Lady Grey: there is this piece of advice that's given out.

Lady Grey: Which is, you know, you should work on your business every day.

Lady Grey: and people hear that, and they think like, Oh, I've got to put in 8 to 10 HA day. I've got to do the most.

Jenn Wilson: Hmm.

Lady Grey: Have to keep an eye on your energy levels, because I mean, I've got Adhd.

Lady Grey: I could make a thing in a couple of hours and then not be able to work for 2 days, you know. And that's gonna negatively impact me in the long run.

Lady Grey: even the list of talks like.

Lady Grey: When I was 1st putting these together. Somebody had to come in and be like you should put this down now because I'd forgotten like I I do need to pay attention to my physical body and.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah, feed and water. I prefer.

Jenn Wilson: because when you, when you're passionate about something, you can get so immersed in it, can't you? Yeah.

Lady Grey: Cool.

Jenn Wilson: And we've got to kind of ride that roller coaster, if we're Adhd is because, you know, when the dopamine is working, we kind of need to ride it, but not to the point where we burn ourselves out.

Lady Grey: My ticket decks.

Lady Grey: But yes, I mean, especially especially if people are neurodiverse.

Lady Grey: So if you're ever in business, and you've heard, I want you to give 110% that is for normal people. That's not for people like us.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah.

Lady Grey: Our 110% is standard people's 250%.

Lady Grey: I've got

Lady Grey: a couple of partners who have autism. And I've had to give them this line of like. No, no! When somebody tells you that they want 110, give them 60.

Lady Grey: I've been very clear with like, whenever I've had a development team onto me, I don't want a hundred percent. I want 60%. I want you sustainable in the long run.

Jenn Wilson: And they want us like.

Lady Grey: Absolutely putting things out.

Jenn Wilson: Hmm.

Lady Grey: But I don't want you killing yourself over this. It's a job, you know.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah.

Lady Grey: And it's the same in the scene like, I don't want to sub to give me a hundred percent and then not be able to give me any more for a week. I'm like, no, I want you to give me enough that I feel special and happy, and then

Lady Grey: you can do the same tomorrow and the same today.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah, yeah, absolutely without anybody being completely overwhelmed and completely in drop and completely in the

Jenn Wilson: in those places. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. So hard to find that balance and and such a practice. And before we finish up this episode, I wonder if we could just like lean into the consent piece in this around.

Jenn Wilson: You know, like how how people get to say no and hold their boundaries and know their limits.

Lady Grey: Well within capitalism. Obviously there is consent issues.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah, because we're in. An you know, we're in a non consensual system paradigm culture. Yeah, yeah.

Lady Grey: Work, or you are homeless, like.

Lady Grey: yeah. So there is always going to be that inherent misbalance.

Jenn Wilson: Hmm.

Lady Grey: However, if you are working for someone I would say.

Lady Grey: do everything you can to make sure that that power imbalance is equalized a bit. Join a union.

Lady Grey: Make sure that they recognize that you are an expert in what you're doing. So that when you come to them, you say, look, we cannot do this with this timescale.

Lady Grey: I. If you're working with any project professionals, they should be aware of the triangle, which is time, money, and

Lady Grey: effort.

Lady Grey: God, I'm so bad at this.

Jenn Wilson: It's all gone out the window because you've been thinking about the Lady Grey talks. And now you've forgotten all those years of Project management.

Lady Grey: Time, quality, and cost, so you can have something done fast and cheap, but it won't be done. Well, you can have something done well and cheap, but it won't be fast, etcetera.

Lady Grey: And with that making sure that everybody is on board, for we want something sustainable.

Jenn Wilson: And.

Lady Grey: As a result.

Lady Grey: like we have to have the ability to tell you. You know, the owner of the company.

Lady Grey: that this thing is bullshit.

Lady Grey: It's 1 of the things I really pride myself about with my teams. Is that

Lady Grey: all of them have the ability to tell me like Morgan. You fucked up on this. We can't do, Xyz. And I'm like, I I really value that.

Lady Grey: Because that means that we are in a place where

Lady Grey: I've built psychological safety in. And I don't know if you've read any of this stuff through my project management company. But psychological safety is one of the key underpinnings of agile organizations.

Lady Grey: So people have to have the ability to reflect, to give you full, unfiltered, feedback.

Lady Grey: Otherwise, you're not really a safe place to work. So trying to build that in and obviously like

Lady Grey: people should definitely look into agile like the the underlying principles of it, even though it's done so badly in a lot of the world, please like, if if you're listening or watching this like it can be done. Well, I promise.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah.

Lady Grey: But yeah, like

Lady Grey: ensuring that, you push for equality within your workplace. So top 50 Dni Award winner. 2 years running.

Lady Grey: okay, yeah, just always pushed for that recognition

Lady Grey: and also recognize when to step back and allow other people to push, because you can't do everything.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah.

Lady Grey: You will burn out.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I'm just thinking about that again. Instead, in in the kind of

Jenn Wilson: solo entrepreneur context. Sometimes the boss is your clients, actually. And it's knowing that you need to hold the boundary with your clients and go. I'm available for this. That's what the service is. And this is how much it costs

Jenn Wilson: and not going. All right. Yeah, let me help you with that email query you've got, and let me help you access all of the things that I've got, and let me respond to all your text messages, and let me always be here for every little thing that you want to bring for the money that you're paying, which is like for 1 h and a half, or for one course, or for a membership, that's whatever, and you know, and and being able to say No, actually, this is the container for this you can come to here.

Jenn Wilson: and no further.

Lady Grey: Yeah.

Jenn Wilson: Means that there's that safety, as you said, and psychological safety, and trust that they can ask for all of those things that they're free to ask for, and they will get a no, if they ask for more things than you're offering for that service. Yeah, yeah, it's so important.

Jenn Wilson: Oh, so, Morgan, I'm just going to wrap up and ask, you know, if people want to find out more about you and your work. Where should they be looking, whether it's about the kind of agile project management side of things, or the Lady Grey talks because they want to hear more about Bdsm, and how that, how that works.

Lady Grey: And so for the project management side of stuff. I have the website z twist com z hyphen twist for the Lady Grey talks. It's the Lady Grey Dot, Xyz

Lady Grey: Xy Xyz, because I'm not American.

Lady Grey: I'm on fetlife as the Lady Grey. I'm on linkedin as Morgan Gray. All of these with an E. By the way, in case you have international listeners.

Lady Grey: and I I'm I'm fairly prolific in the London Polyamory scene.

Jenn Wilson: That, Morgan. It's an absolute pleasure. And obviously we'll share all those links in the show notes for anyone who's looking to find you and find out more about your work and potentially work with you, or get a talk from you, or whatever they would like to do. Thank you so much for being my guest today. What a fascinating insight into a slightly more adult framing of some of this stuff that we talk about.

Lady Grey: Thank you very much.

Jenn Wilson: See ya soon.