Humanizing Rules

CHAPTER 30CONCLUSION

Lessons from a Sexologist

In July 2020, I was scrolling through my Twitter feed looking for new ideas when I came across a tweet that grabbed my attention.¹ The first line read as follows:

If you want to know how we get people to comply with wearing face masks, ask a sexologist.

Obviously, the word “sexologist” made the post incredibly salient. I didn't know any sexologists, so I wanted to learn what advice they might be able to give. But I also loved that this was someone drawing compliance lessons from one field and applying them in another. If a sexologist thought there were some parallels, I wanted to know more. The second line of the tweet read:

It's not our first rodeo when it comes to convincing people they should wear a barrier for protection from a deadly virus.

Suddenly it became clear where the thread was going; insights from stopping the spread of HIV could provide lessons on how to stop the spread of COVID. Genius! I read on.

You can't shame, guilt or judge people into compliance. Does not work.

Wow! This was interesting. You don't have to be a sexologist to see sense in that statement. And then:

Help people to learn the communication skills needed to talk to others they encounter who don't want to wear one.

Music to my ears! It was pure “think about how people are likely to behave rather than how we'd like them to behave!” The thread continued with eight other equally insightful and behaviourally brilliant tweets. So, I did exactly ...