What is a Yes/No/Maybe list?
A Yes/No/Maybe list is a tool couples use to map what they want to try together. One partner doesn't pitch ideas to the other; instead, both people go through the same set of possibilities and privately mark each one. The magic is in how the answers combine — you compare lists, and only the things you both leaned toward come into view. Everything else stays where it was.
The three answers are deliberately distinct, and what each one means matters:
- Yes — "I want this," or "I'd happily try this."
- Maybe — "I'm open, or curious, but unsure." A maybe is not agreement; it's a door left ajar, an invitation to talk more.
- No — "Not for me." A no is a complete answer. It doesn't need a reason, and it isn't a starting point for negotiation.
When two people's answers are compared, only matches surface — the items you both said yes to, or both left open. Anything one partner declined simply never appears as a suggestion. That single design choice is what makes the format work.
Why the format builds consent in by design
This is the part that makes a Yes/No/Maybe list safer than simply asking each other across the dinner table — and it's worth being explicit about, because these lists often range into adventurous territory.
Three rules the format enforces for you
A No is final. It surfaces nothing, requires no justification, and isn't reopened. A Maybe is not a Yes. It signals openness or uncertainty — a reason to keep talking, never a green light. You only ever see overlap. Because declined items stay invisible, no one is put on the spot to react to a wish they don't share, and no one feels pressured by seeing what the other wanted that they didn't.
That structure removes the two things that make these conversations feel risky: the fear of an awkward reaction, and the pressure to say yes to keep the peace. Nobody has to perform enthusiasm, and nobody has to deliver a rejection face-to-face. The list does the filtering, so the two of you can spend your attention on what you share.
One important limit carries over from the research: a yes recorded in advance is an invitation to be confirmed in the moment, not a standing permission. This matters most for anything involving a partner who can't actively respond when it happens — Spicer's report on waking a partner with sex makes the point directly, that prior agreement must always be re-confirmable and revocable (Report 007). The list starts the conversation; it never replaces in-the-moment consent.
The six things any pair of answers can produce
When two partners both answer the same item, there are exactly six possible combinations — from full agreement to mutual decline. Learning to read these six is the entire skill of using a Yes/No/Maybe list, so it helps to see what each looks like in real data. The bars below come from actual Spicer reports; each is a single question answered independently by hundreds of thousands of couples.
When most couples want the same thing, the both-yes bar dominates. This is what easy agreement looks like.
Report 005, n = 253,240 couples. 80.5% mutual yes — the highest in the Spicer series. Rounded to one decimal.
The cleanest result is a wall of agreement. When Spicer asked 253,240 couples about wanting more spontaneous sex, 80% both said yes (Report 005) — the kind of lopsided both-yes bar that tells you this is easy common ground, not a negotiation.
Some ideas draw more agreement in one direction than the other. Here, more couples both want to receive dirty talk (55%) than both want to give it (45%).
Report 004 (receiving side), n = 403,710 couples. The giving side's mutual yes was lower, at 44.7%. Rounded to one decimal.
Other ideas draw more agreement in one direction than another. Asked as two separate questions, 55% of couples both wanted to receive dirty talk, but only 45% both wanted to give it (Report 004). On a list, that shows up as a healthy match on the receiving side and a thinner one on the giving side — useful to know before anyone assumes the two are the same.
On some topics, preference splits by role: here, men lean toward giving a massage (82%) while women lean toward receiving one (83.5%) — opposite ends of the same pair of questions.
Report 002 (giving side), n = 429,079 couples. The gender lean reverses on the receiving side. Rounded to one decimal.
And some preferences split by role entirely. On sensual massage, men leaned toward giving (82%) and women toward receiving (83.5%) — opposite ends of the same pair (Report 002). This is the single best argument for comparing answers instead of guessing: if you'd assumed your partner wanted what you wanted, the list would have just corrected you, privately and without friction.
What your answers reveal about each other
Read across enough items and patterns emerge. In Spicer's data — across the reports this guide draws on — three kept recurring, and they're the same three you'll likely see on your own list:
- Quiet agreement you didn't know about. The most common outcome, again and again, was mutual yes — 60% on longer foreplay (Report 001), 59% on a more vocal partner (Report 003). Much of what a list reveals is simply permission to want what you already both wanted.
- One-sided openness. Plenty of items land "one yes, one maybe" — not a no, not yet a yes. These are the conversation starters: someone's interested, the other's curious, and a small talk is usually all that's between them.
- Genuine role splits. On giving vs receiving, and on more adventurous items like restraints (Report 006), partners often lean opposite ways. The list surfaces the fit you'd never have guessed — or tells you honestly where you don't match.
None of these is a verdict on the relationship. They're a map of where the easy yeses are, where the conversations are, and where to leave well enough alone.
How to make a Yes/No/Maybe list
You can build one yourself with a shared document or a printed checklist. The method matters more than the materials:
- Answer separately and honestly. The whole point is independent answers. Fill yours in without watching each other or talking it through first.
- Don't peek before you compare. Privacy during answering is what makes honesty possible.
- Compare only the matches. Look at what you both said yes or maybe to. Resist the urge to interrogate the no's — that breaks the safety the format gives you.
- Start gentle, then broaden. Open with lower-stakes items to get comfortable with the process before ranging further.
- Revisit it. Desire isn't fixed. A list is a snapshot, worth redoing every so often.
A homemade list works — but it has real limits. It's static, it's only as broad as the ideas you thought to include, and keeping the answering truly private is awkward on paper.
The easier way: a living Yes/No/Maybe list
This is, almost exactly, what the Spicer app is — a Yes/No/Maybe list built for couples and designed around the rules above. Instead of a fixed checklist, it offers more than 12,000 intimacy questions spanning everything from the gentle to the adventurous, so you're not limited to the handful of ideas you happened to write down. Each partner answers privately, and — just like the format demands — only the answers you both said yes or maybe to ever become a match. Anything either of you declines stays hidden, permanently.
It handles the parts that make a paper list awkward: the answering is genuinely private, the matching is automatic, nothing you decline is ever shown to your partner, and you can revisit and add to it over time as things change. It's the same idea this whole guide is about — finding your overlap without the cold open — just without the spreadsheet.
The research behind this guide
Every Spicer figure and worked example in this guide is drawn from a published Spicer Research report, each based on couples who answered privately and independently, aggregated anonymously. The full sources, with sample sizes, snapshot dates, and complete methodology, are:
- Spicer Research, Report 005 — More Spontaneous Sex (n = 253,240 couples). Worked example 1; the 80% mutual-yes figure.
- Spicer Research, Report 004 — Talking Dirty (Give vs Receive). Worked example 2; the 55% receive / 45% give figures.
- Spicer Research, Report 002 — Sensual Massage (Give vs Receive) (n = 429,079 couples, giving side). Worked example 3; the 82% / 83.5% gender-lean figures.
- Spicer Research, Report 001 — Longer Foreplay (n = 416,575 couples). The 60% mutual-yes figure.
- Spicer Research, Report 003 — A More Vocal Partner (n = 398,512 couples). The 59% mutual-yes figure.
- Spicer Research, Report 006 — Restraints (Give vs Receive). The role-split example.
- Spicer Research, Report 007 — Waking a Partner with Sex. The advance-consent point.