Betty Martin, creator of the Wheel of Consent, discusses the dynamics of giving, receiving, taking, and allowing. The practice teaches communication, boundaries, integrity, and self-awareness. It emphasizes the importance of clear consent, vulnerability, and connection in relationships. The model can be applied to understand ourselves and relate better to others.
The Wheel of Consent teaches communication, boundaries, integrity, and self-awareness in interactions with others.
Practicing vulnerability through touch and sensation can lead to self-acceptance, pleasure, and better connection with oneself and others.
Deep dives
The Wheel of Consent: A Practice in Taking Turns
The podcast explores the concept of the Wheel of Consent, a practice created by Betty Martin. The Wheel of Consent involves two or more people engaging in a practice of taking, receiving, and giving in a specific sequential order. The practice is focused on touching, but can also be practiced without touch. When taking a turn, one person is the giver, fulfilling their own desires while respecting the receiver's limits. When receiving, the focus is on the receiver, who expresses their desires and receives what they ask for. Boundaries and agreements play a crucial role in the practice, ensuring that both participants feel safe and empowered. The Wheel of Consent cultivates gratitude, generosity, surrender, and integrity within each quadrant of the practice. By exploring the Wheel of Consent, individuals can develop a deeper understanding of their own desires, practice clear communication, and cultivate greater intimacy in their relationships.
Embracing Vulnerability through the Wheel of Consent
The Wheel of Consent highlights the importance of vulnerability in intimate interactions. It encourages individuals to slow down, explore sensations, and awaken their hands to fully experience touch. By doing so, practitioners can tap into their senses, build self-acceptance, and discover what brings pleasure and comfort to their own bodies. This process of awakening can be vulnerable, emotional, and transformative. It allows individuals to become more present, own their desires, and communicate their boundaries with clarity. Through practicing the Wheel of Consent, one can deepen their understanding of how vulnerability shapes their relationships and embrace a more authentic and fulfilling connection with themselves and others.
Navigating Consent: Beyond Pleasure and into Justice
The Wheel of Consent emphasizes the importance of consent and dismantling harmful beliefs and behaviors around pleasure. It focuses on how society often fails to understand and respect personal boundaries, leading to various forms of abuse. The practice encourages individuals to clearly communicate their desires, set limits, and empower themselves and others through consent. By valuing personal boundaries and integrity, practitioners can recognize the relevance of consent not only in intimate relationships but also in broader contexts such as environmental issues and social justice. The Wheel of Consent highlights the transformative potential of consent in creating healthier, more equitable connections and fostering a safer and more compassionate world.
Practicing the Wheel of Consent in Everyday Life
The podcast discusses the practical application of the Wheel of Consent in various aspects of life. The three-minute game is presented as a way to practice the principles of the Wheel of Consent with a partner, taking turns asking each other what they want and reaching agreements. This practice helps individuals develop skills in expressing desires, setting boundaries, and fostering clear communication. The podcast also emphasizes that integrating the Wheel of Consent into everyday life requires vulnerability and a willingness to explore one's own desires and limits. When practiced regularly, the Wheel of Consent can lead to increased self-awareness, improved relationships, and a greater sense of empowerment in all interactions.
In this episode of the Mind Bod Adventure Pod, we take a deep dive into the dynamics of giving, receiving, taking, and allowing with guest Betty Martin.
Why does Jeff gush that Betty is the next Buddha? Because Jeff is overly-excitable! And because Betty’s Wheel of Consent is about much more than just sex and touch. It’s about how we’re human with each other. Her model of consent is now taught in dozens of communities around the world. Among other things, the practice teaches communication and boundaries, integrity and self-awareness, generosity and gratitude, vulnerability and connection.
You don’t need a partner – or even to be into sex – in order to benefit from the understandings here. We practice with an inanimate object – a pen, a jar, a piece of wood – “waking up” our hands to receive pleasure from the world. Easy to talk about, but for many, surprisingly hard to do. That’s why this is a practice with implications for understanding ourselves and how we relate to everyone in our lives.
Let us know in the comments how this episode lands for you:
And now: Join us for The Afterparty… 👇
The Afterparty
Wherein we talk candidly about knowing what you want, patriarchy, vulnerability, play, control, mystery, and a few other things we didn’t get to say during the episode. [WATCH]
The Afterparty will eventually move behind ye olde paywall, but for now, it’s free for all :)
If this episode tickled your adventure-loving fancy, consider sharing it with a friend