The Wheel of Consent is a foundational tool for all human relating – between friends, family, colleagues and intimate partners.
This work is for people who have an interest in personal development, are committed to a healthy mind/body connection and want to learn to be in their body, and are curious about expanding their erotic potential, intimacy and connection.
Learning the Wheel of Consent
When you engage with another – whether it is a lover, friend or colleague – are you doing what they want you to do, or what they allow you to do? What is the difference and why does it matter?
You are invited to attend a workshop on the Wheel of Consent, which is a powerful tool to improve the quality of your touch and create clear agreements so you can experience satisfying connection and intimacy to self and others.
We are all looking for greater connection and intimacy. But how do we get it? Where do we start? How much is our personal responsibility and how much of the responsibility belongs to our partner?
We’ll explore these questions so that you’ll come away with a greater sense of connection to yourself as well as tools to increase your sensitivity and relationship to pleasure – with or without a partner.
It all starts with feeling safe. When you are safe, you can make choices; when you can make choices, you are empowered.
This workshop is an invitation for singles and for couples.
You will be guided in learning to touch and connect – first and foremost with yourself – in a conscious and empowered way. From here, you will learn to create agreements with yourself and with another to access deeper levels of intimacy and expansiveness.
This workshop was developed by Dr. Betty Martin, where the focus is to activate your hands, improve the quality of your touch, explore consensual touch, and learn how to separate doing from giving and discover deeper layers of receiving.
Deep spiritual qualities of surrender, integrity, gratitude and generosity will unfold as you learn new dynamics related to giving and receiving. Building on this, there will be an emphasis on communication and consent, and exploring receiving pleasure through the action of taking as a foundation of love and service.
With a lover we want to feel safe and trust, to be soft, open and vulnerable, to let go of defenses and resistance — when this happens, we can let go and enter into a deep space of surrender.
To create the possibility for surrender we need integrity and clear agreements. We make commitments to ourselves, first and foremost, from a place of self-love and respect.
This workshop is about:
Waking up sensuality – feeling and following pleasure
Making choices – learning how to choose for yourself
Understanding the dynamics of Receiving and Giving
Understanding who is doing what and for who’s pleasure – because this is the foundation of safety!
Gaining skills of empowerment and communication – noticing, valuing, and trusting desires, having the courage to ask for what you want, and feeling safe enough to receive
The Wheel of Consent gives you an experience of four ways to touch and relate within clear agreements:
Taking for your own pleasure – you do what you want – while respecting the giver’s boundaries;
Allowing another to take from you – they do what they want with your permission – while maintaining your boundaries;
Serving another for their pleasure – you do what they want – within your boundaries; and
Accepting the gift of another’s service – they do what you want – while maintaining their boundaries.
Unless you take apart and experience each of these four aspects, it is impossible to know what they really are.
Understanding and embodying the Wheel of Consent can only happen through a somatic experience – you have to feel it in your skin. Therefore, learning the Wheel happens through touch exercises.
In the full three day workshop, you will:
Learn what ‘Receiving’ and ‘Giving’ really are – and why knowing the difference is crucial for creating connection and intimacy
Find out where you are clear (or not) in Receiving and Giving
Learn the framework of the Wheel of Consent and the four Quadrants as a foundation for connection
Experience pleasure and sensation in your skin that you can access any time you choose
Access parts of yourself that have been hidden away that are ready to be seen, appreciated and healed
Gain skills to bring clarity and heart into your hands so that all your touch is rich, juicy and satisfying
Become exquisitely aware of your desires and limits and how to communicate them
Practice Receiving and Giving and experience each of the four Quadrants
There are many opportunities for exchanging touch as part of the learning, but there is no genital touch and clothing stays on in the workshop.
Who is this for?
This workshop is for anyone who is interested in learning more about themselves and improving the quality of their relationships – personal or professional, with lovers, friends, parents, children or colleagues. No prior experience necessary. For those who have been exposed to the Wheel, and those who haven’t, there are always new levels of awareness to be found.