For The Wild - BETTY MARTIN on The Language of Consent ⧸358

00:00:00.060 Hello and welcome to For the Wild podcast. I'm Ayanna Young. Today we are speaking with Betty Martin.

00:00:07.120 If you want more trust in your relationships, especially your intimate ones and close ones,

00:00:14.840 then the person you need to trust is yourself.

00:00:19.620 You need to be able to trust your ability to say yes and no and to ask for what you want.

00:00:30.000 Dr. Betty Martin has had her hands on people professionally for over 40 years, first as a chiropractor and upon retiring from that practice as a certified surrogate partner, sacred intimate, and somatic sex educator.

00:00:45.120 Her explorations in somatic-based therapy and practices informed her creation of the framework, The Wheel of Consent.

00:00:52.000 She wrote a book about it called The Art of Receiving and Giving the Wheel of Consent

00:00:56.420 and travels the world teaching other practitioners how to use the practices

00:01:00.360 and the model to keep their clients safe and their sessions effective and satisfying.

00:01:13.260 Betty, I am so excited to speak with you.

00:01:18.440 I just want to give a shout out to Roxy Jane Hunt, one of my dearest, bestest sister friends

00:01:24.320 who told me that we must speak and I couldn't agree more.

00:01:28.760 And so, yeah, it's felt like the anticipation has been growing.

00:01:33.280 And I'm really looking forward to having some quality time with you.

00:01:37.800 Thanks.

00:01:38.040 Thanks for having me.

00:01:39.140 Yeah.

00:01:39.880 I guess I would love to talk through the frameworks of consent that you have spent so much of

00:01:47.320 your life working on, and maybe specifically how we might broaden our understanding and

00:01:55.000 practice of consent within our culture so that we could step more into feeling empowered and aware.

00:02:03.680 I think probably just giving an overview of the framework that I developed and that we're

00:02:13.540 talking about. I didn't start out to learn about consent or teach about consent. It just wasn't

00:02:22.620 particularly on my radar. In the mid-90s, I started taking after divorce, and I was in my

00:02:31.220 mid-40s at that point. I took some workshops on sexuality and did some exploring and did some

00:02:36.900 workshops and and at one of those workshops we played a game called a three-minute game

00:02:44.140 which is two people taking turns asking each other these two questions and one question is

00:02:52.980 what do you want to do to me for three minutes hence the three minutes part and the other

00:02:58.800 question is what do you want me to do to you for three minutes and if you have a practice buddy or

00:03:08.380 partner that you can play that with and you ask each other those two questions you're going to

00:03:12.800 notice that that creates four rounds so I'm asking you what do you want to do to me and you say oh

00:03:20.040 may I play with your hair or may I explore your feet or whatever it is and I'm going to say yes

00:03:26.580 or no or this within these bounds or whatever negotiation we need to make and then we'll do

00:03:32.440 that and then by the time you each person asks both questions you've you've created four rounds

00:03:40.720 and in one of them I'm doing what I want and another one I'm doing what you want and you

00:03:48.020 discover pretty quickly that there's a quite a bit of difference between those two things

00:03:52.260 I'm either doing what you want or I'm doing what I want.

00:03:55.940 And likewise, in the other two, you're doing what you want or you are doing what I want.

00:04:02.800 So it becomes clear pretty quickly that who is doing is a different question than who it's for.

00:04:13.860 And this is where it gets really rich.

00:04:16.720 because if I am doing to you what I want,

00:04:21.020 basically I'm feeling you up and that's lovely and great.

00:04:24.920 And everybody needs a chance to feel people up with their permission.

00:04:29.300 And then the other one, I'm doing what you want.

00:04:32.160 I may be giving you a massage, you're scratching your head,

00:04:34.620 rubbing your feet or whatever.

00:04:36.780 So when I'm doing to you what I want, it's for me.

00:04:43.400 It's not about making you happy.

00:04:46.460 I'm respecting your boundaries, of course, but it's not about making you happy.

00:04:50.500 It's about making me happy.

00:04:52.240 Like, where do my hands want to go?

00:04:54.300 What do I want to do?

00:04:55.260 What sounds fun to me?

00:04:57.520 And that is pretty much the opposite way that most people are taught is the right way to touch.

00:05:07.620 When most people think of touch, they think of, oh, it's for the person who's being touched.

00:05:13.480 and often it is usually it is but in this in this one quadrant of the of the circle

00:05:23.500 it's for me i'm doing what i want so when i noticed that that was happening i just drew

00:05:32.380 it out in four quadrants with an x-axis and a y-axis and a vertical line and a horizontal line

00:05:38.200 so that there's four quadrants.

00:05:40.640 And in the doing half, it's either for me or for you.

00:05:44.560 In the done to half, it's also either for me or for you.

00:05:48.820 And in the for me half, I'm either doing what I want

00:05:52.740 or you're doing what I want.

00:05:55.080 And in the it's for you half,

00:05:58.640 it's either you're doing what you want

00:06:01.800 or I'm doing what you want.

00:06:04.300 So you have this four quadrants of the circle of the wheel.

00:06:08.200 And so I call it the wheel of consent, which after I'd been teaching this for 10 or 15 years, I thought, you know, I should really look in the dictionary and see what consent, what consent really is.

00:06:22.860 And I was kind of surprised, but as I thought about it, it made a lot of sense because consent in the dictionary means agreeing to do something that somebody else wants.

00:06:37.060 So I consent to X, Y, Z means I agree to go along with X, Y, Z, which presumably you have requested or suggested.

00:06:47.760 So consent essentially means it's OK with me.

00:06:51.900 I don't mind. You can do that thing.

00:06:54.840 And that's that's an important dynamic sometimes, but it's certainly not the whole picture.

00:07:03.480 It doesn't leave any room for, well, what do I want?

00:07:09.920 Consent is a good thing, but it's a very low bar for human interaction.

00:07:17.380 And again, it's better than nothing, but it's a very low bar, particularly for interactions of affection or sex or whatever kinds of connection or play that two or more people may have.

00:07:30.240 sometimes we do things because it's okay and other times we do things because that sounds

00:07:37.180 fabulous that's what I really want and so the wheel of consent makes a distinction or notices

00:07:44.960 the distinction's already there but notices the distinction between those two dynamics

00:07:51.760 and and that's the the contribution that the wheel of consent brings to the consent

00:07:57.840 conversation at large it's not that consent's a good idea like that's not news you already knew

00:08:03.400 that but the fact that who is doing is a different question than who it's for i i think we're probably

00:08:13.640 the only people talking about that that i've ever heard anyway that's the wheel of consent

00:08:17.680 who is doing is a different question than who it's for

00:08:21.900 and so then now you have these four quadrants big deal who cares what what happens is that as you

00:08:31.780 play with them uh by which i mean you ask each other those two questions and you explore and

00:08:39.540 see what comes up and and you find that when you are in each role each quadrant

00:08:49.700 it feels different than the other one if i'm doing what you want it feels very different

00:08:58.680 from me doing what i want it just feels different different experience in my body and it's different

00:09:05.560 experience in your body as well um and likewise when you're doing something to me that you want

00:09:12.800 it feels very different than when you're doing something to me that I want.

00:09:18.540 And so each quadrant turns out, if you play with them a while,

00:09:24.860 turns out that each of them will challenge you in a different way.

00:09:29.700 Each of them has its own kind of joy and pleasure,

00:09:33.860 and each of them has a different kind of lesson for you to learn about yourself

00:09:38.620 and a different kind of dynamic between different people.

00:09:42.800 So I think this is where it gets into the bigger questions about interacting in society at large and interacting with other people.

00:09:55.300 This is where, in my mind, it gets really interesting.

00:09:59.020 I mean, it has a big effect on the expression of affection that you may have with partners and friends and loved ones.

00:10:06.720 And it makes a very big difference in any sexual interaction.

00:10:09.820 but I don't really care so much about that I mean it's kind of interesting but what's really

00:10:15.460 more interesting to me is what it has to do how it shows up in the world at large

00:10:23.380 that's where it gets kind of really interesting I just I couldn't help but to imagine how

00:10:30.620 magical it is when you're with somebody and they're doing what you want them to do

00:10:40.380 and what you want them to do is what they want to do that's that's a bonus it doesn't happen

00:10:47.080 all that often no i'm i don't know if we even should strive for that yeah that's a good question

00:10:54.720 in the expression of affection and sexuality and sexual play, you kind of hope that both of you

00:11:03.200 want to be there. And that's really generally what most people want to go for. The wheel of

00:11:09.860 consent is a practice in taking, receiving, and giving apart so that you're doing only one of

00:11:18.380 them or only the other. It's not meant to replace your life or replace all of your interactions,

00:11:25.940 but it's a practice. And within the practice, like any other practice, like meditation or yoga

00:11:33.640 or basketball, like just the practice. And within the practice, it's an opportunity to

00:11:40.940 kind of narrow the parameters of what's possible so that a whole different door opens

00:11:48.680 than you might expect and a whole different landscape becomes possible. For instance,

00:11:56.000 in meditation, you sit or you walk or whatever you do, and there's limited things that are options.

00:12:03.160 And because of that, it lets you go deep into your own experience. And in the same way,

00:12:08.720 this the wheel of consent as a practice you are limiting what you're doing to one quadrant or the

00:12:17.460 other say I have asked you how how you want to touch me and you have said may I play with your

00:12:25.340 hair and I say sure now we're limited to you're playing with my hair and it's for you it's not

00:12:33.300 for me. And that means that your attention is going to go to your hands. And what does my hair

00:12:40.820 feel like in your hands? And what's it feel like to run your hands through my hair? And

00:12:44.920 you stop thinking about what it feels like to me. And you focus on what it feels like to you.

00:12:53.620 And this is my gift to you. Access to my hair is my gift to you. And that's an honest to good

00:13:03.280 gift access to our bodies that's a real gift to that we might choose to give to somebody

00:13:09.680 and again we're respecting all our boundaries but that's a gift so now we have this kind of

00:13:18.080 narrow interaction where you're exploring my hair for three minutes or whatever we'd agreed on

00:13:25.240 and uh and of course you can change your mind and you just renegotiate so it's not like you're

00:13:31.220 stuck there. But that narrowing of the focus opens a different door than would have been possible

00:13:41.140 if we were just playing around and experimenting. It's a different door. And it turns out that it's

00:13:49.120 often a very challenging one, especially when you're on the receiving end, which means when

00:13:55.180 it's for you because I mean how many people say oh I'm not a good receiver well just about everybody

00:14:02.260 seems like um and so yikes now I get to learn what is it like to actually get my back rubbed

00:14:12.980 just the way I want it or my head scratched just the way I want it or my feet rubbed just the way

00:14:17.500 I want it and not worry about the other person oh my god that's going to be confronting and it

00:14:24.480 often is. It tends to be tenderhearted. Sometimes it's difficult to even know what we want because

00:14:32.420 no one's ever asked us before. Or if they have, we haven't noticed how to notice what we want and

00:14:39.260 how to express what we want and how to actually experience how wonderful it is. And then it feels

00:14:45.640 so wonderful that I start crying and I have no idea why I'm crying because it feels so wonderful.

00:14:50.840 And, you know, all kinds of all kinds of responses are quite natural and normal in it, because it's kind of boiling the interaction down to the simplest part.

00:15:07.540 Will you do this thing that I want you to do for, you know, X number of minutes?

00:15:13.680 And if you say yes, and I get this thing that I want, oh, my gosh, it's amazing.

00:15:20.840 And then the time is up, and then I say thank you, and you say you're welcome, and it becomes your turn.

00:15:25.180 So it's a practice of taking turns and taking, receiving, and giving apart so that you can experience each of them without being diluted by the other one.

00:15:40.500 When I'm receiving and it's just for me, and when I can really take that into my heart, then it cracks my heart open.

00:15:50.080 It just does. And and then I get to learn and feel and have all the ahas that come with that.

00:15:59.240 And when it's just for you, then it opens my heart in a different way.

00:16:04.720 I'm giving you the thing that you want. And that also feeds my heart, but in a different way.

00:16:12.360 So one thing that happens when you do take them apart is that you find out what they are.

00:16:18.840 because usually in personal interaction we're trying to find the sweet spot we're trying to

00:16:26.560 someone's trying to give us a back rub but we're trying to give them something at the same time or

00:16:32.120 we're you know trying to make sure that they have a good time at the same time that we're

00:16:36.940 you know we're trying to dilute it because we're kind of afraid of that tenderheartedness and that

00:16:46.920 vulnerability which is inherent to receiving a gift from someone we care about so it's a practice

00:16:57.460 of taking them apart so that you do only one of them at a time and that is what that is what

00:17:05.860 blows your mind when you're in it and again it's not doesn't replace your other play time and your

00:17:13.340 other times for affection because you wouldn't want to be taking turns all the time. At least

00:17:20.600 I wouldn't. I think most people don't. But as a practice, it deepens what becomes possible

00:17:28.440 at other times. And I think that's one thing that's helpful to recognize that it's a practice

00:17:35.740 in taking, receiving, and giving apart.

00:17:38.360 And then you learn what's possible.

00:17:43.340 And then you start to see, oh, this is affecting my life in other ways.

00:17:50.140 And that's where you have your ahas and you apply them to your life,

00:17:55.480 however they apply.

00:17:56.380 That's not up to me.

00:17:58.080 I can talk about some themes that tend to show up,

00:18:01.200 But it's how it shows up for you will be unique to you.

00:18:05.760 And then you get to decide, oh, it's hard for me to ask for what I want in my life.

00:18:14.040 Now I have to reckon with that.

00:18:17.100 Oh, I'm afraid to receive any kind of gift from anybody, anywhere, anytime.

00:18:23.600 That's going to affect your life.

00:18:25.300 Or, oh, I give way too much and go over, walk over my own boundaries.

00:18:33.580 Oh, that's going to affect your life as well.

00:18:36.200 So you'll be seeing it in the practice.

00:18:39.820 You'll be seeing these habits will become visible to you.

00:18:44.680 And that can be hard.

00:18:47.280 And then you'll see where you'll take it into your life.

00:18:52.400 So in answer to your question about the sweet spot, if I am asking for a back rub and you also think, well, that sounds delightful, I'd love to give you a back rub, then I get the back rub, it's great.

00:19:08.220 if however you're running your hands down my back and i don't know if it's what you want i don't know

00:19:16.680 if it's what i want and you don't know who's it for what's happening and then it's some and we

00:19:23.040 both think oh well i guess the other person wants this because it's kind of okay i don't mind but

00:19:30.940 it's not really great and then both of you are going along thinking it's for the other person

00:19:37.620 but nobody really wants it

00:19:39.920 I mean

00:19:40.800 how many times has that happened

00:19:43.780 it's happened to me a plenty

00:19:45.480 and whenever I'm in a room of people

00:19:48.160 everybody nods their head and says

00:19:49.700 yep that's happened

00:19:50.620 and so

00:19:55.320 your hand's going this way down my back

00:19:58.160 what if

00:20:00.180 I want to go to the left

00:20:01.980 and you want it to go to the right

00:20:03.540 now which way is it going to go

00:20:05.280 well it depends

00:20:07.360 on what our agreement is, if we have agreement.

00:20:14.820 So it's lovely to think about, well, let's find the sweet spot

00:20:20.440 where we both want it, and that's where most people kind of want to be

00:20:28.260 most of the time, if they can find it.

00:20:31.520 And it's a delightful place to be, a place of play and response.

00:20:37.360 But where it gets lost is, who is this actually for?

00:20:43.600 And who's actually enjoying it?

00:20:47.800 Maybe nobody, maybe both.

00:20:51.380 Yeah, those conversations can be difficult for all the reasons you mentioned.

00:20:57.060 They're tender and scary.

00:20:59.600 And I wish I would have written down exactly what you said a response ago.

00:21:03.780 You said something about what you're really interested in.

00:21:07.360 Um, well, I'm interested in my own journey of learning this stuff and practicing and getting more clear on where am I, if I'm afraid to ask for something, what am I going to do instead?

00:21:28.140 to sneak it. I'm going to steal it. I'm going to manipulate to get it. I'm going to pretend it's

00:21:33.120 for you and be insulted when you ask me if it's something I want. And so I become interested in

00:21:41.500 that in myself, like, okay, where is it that I'm trying to sneak something that I'm not actually

00:21:48.940 admitting that this is what I want or that asking for what I want? Or where am I trying to give,

00:21:55.220 give, give, give, give, give in order to actually just get some appreciation, you know. And so

00:22:03.200 I've started to clean up those areas in my life where I'll notice, oh, I'm trying to give this

00:22:12.260 thing. This person doesn't actually want it and I'm disappointed they don't want it. That's really

00:22:19.780 about me it's something I wanted so to be an integrity I need to ask for that instead of

00:22:26.660 pretending that it's for the other person I need to actually ask for it like now I can be ridiculed

00:22:34.140 I can be someone can say no I can be laughed at you know I can be disappointed and it doesn't go

00:22:42.480 with my doesn't match my internal self image as the magnanimous giver of everything so you know

00:22:51.080 now I'm in trouble so that's where it's been of interest to me in cleaning up those messes in my

00:22:57.980 own life where I have failed to ask for what I want or I have failed to say no no I'm not willing

00:23:06.100 to do that or I'm willing to do that only to this degree um and so that that's where it's really

00:23:15.160 become of more interest to me besides it's fun I mean that's that kind of goes without saying

00:23:21.460 but then I think in the larger world we there's a way that we as a as a society as a culture

00:23:33.240 we i'm a descendant of a european uh immigrant to the united states decades ago i mean generations

00:23:42.340 ago and my people white people came to this continent i'm in north america came to this

00:23:51.140 continent and stole the land and wiped out many of the people who were living here

00:23:57.280 well that's pretty that's a pretty serious thing to do that wouldn't have happened if we knew how

00:24:10.200 to ask for what we wanted here and take a no for an answer like we didn't take no for an answer

00:24:14.880 we just stole it anyway and that's an example of of what happens when we don't know how to respect

00:24:25.360 a no or you know don't really ask with a genuine it's not a genuine ask is a demand and it's a

00:24:33.600 theft so you can take these basic dynamics and see how they apply in the world at large

00:24:44.080 yeah and it's just some real ugly stuff of course and you can see it on an individual level there's

00:24:54.300 the kind of stereotypical experience of the guy trying to pick up the gal and she says no and then

00:25:03.900 he gets violent and gets angry and then what is that about like he was making an invitation or

00:25:12.620 request and then he got a no and then he couldn't handle the no so there's a person who needs some

00:25:18.620 practice in the vulnerability of asking for what you want and hearing a yes and a no. And so it

00:25:26.040 just plays out in so many places in our lives. And there's, I'm sure most of us have ways in which we

00:25:35.200 give and give and give and do and do and do in trying to get affection or attention or

00:25:42.080 appreciation or something. Or because we don't know how to say no, we're afraid that if I say no,

00:25:47.720 they'll leave yeah the the dynamics that it becomes when you when you're playing with the

00:25:55.160 wheel and playing with it as a practice those dynamics show up but in a very low stakes

00:26:02.420 friendly way and so you ask me will you rub my back and I don't want to but I don't know how

00:26:09.720 to say no so I say yes and then I do that for three minutes and I go I didn't really want to

00:26:14.260 do that. And then I can see, oh, I do that in my relationship as well. Now here I can actually see

00:26:21.400 it up close. So it's an opportunity to see more of those dynamics in yourself in a low stakes

00:26:30.240 situation. So that's the way I see it in the larger picture is we also enact these same

00:26:39.120 dynamics as a nation, extracting the micro minerals in mines in South Africa for our

00:26:48.140 cell phones. Do we really have permission there? I don't know. We have permission from somebody,

00:26:59.140 but is it really being fair to the people who would say no if they had an option to say no?

00:27:05.980 you know I don't know but those are the ways that it plays out in the larger world

00:27:35.980 yeah you're really hitting on bot there for me it's like who are we asking consent from

00:27:54.240 what language are we using and what i mean by that is there's a mind up here in alaska that i've been

00:28:00.360 working against. Of course, there's the people here, the humans, but there's the salmon. Are

00:28:07.920 they consenting to their water being poisoned? I think too, especially in extracting resources on

00:28:16.080 Earth, it's not only that people and more than human people are not given the opportunity to

00:28:23.960 say yes or no, but I think there's also a real urgency on the timeline. Are you really

00:28:30.260 willing to take the time to hear somebody think it through and say yes or no, and really understand

00:28:36.820 all of the consequences in order to make a decision. This overculture makes huge decisions

00:28:44.200 very quickly that have extremely long-term impacts because there's an urgency to take,

00:28:51.420 take, take rather than slow down because the overculture doesn't want to slow down. 0.68

00:28:57.380 There's no money in slowing down. 0.96

00:28:59.220 Exactly. Yeah. And consent takes time. Like if you really want to hear from somebody, it may not be on the timeline you want it first. So there's even a consent on the timeline piece.

00:29:13.620 Yeah.

00:29:13.840 Yeah, if we slowed down, I think we would really make entirely different decisions. But it's a tall order for people. And anyways, I'm really glad you spoke about consent on kind of a more of a global perspective and non-human perspective.

00:29:33.340 because there are so many layers to consent. But as I'm hearing you speak, I'm thinking back to

00:29:44.280 the Wheel of Consent book. And you wrote, quote,

00:29:47.620 one thing that became clear was that my sexuality belonged to me. The realization was so sharp that

00:29:54.140 it made me wonder what I had been thinking all those years before. As a woman of my generation,

00:29:59.580 I had learned that my sexuality was always in response to someone else's, someone else's desire,

00:30:05.220 someone else's idea of what was sexy. But now it belonged to me. I learned we are each the source

00:30:12.000 of our own eroticism and we can bring it out to play if, when, how, and with whom we choose.

00:30:19.740 Yeah, I think this is really poignant. And especially now when there's so much in the

00:30:27.600 media about our sexuality. And I think there's a lot of confusion and, and exploration and

00:30:34.660 curiosity. And so, yeah, I would just love to hear how you gave to take your sexuality as your own.

00:30:44.800 Well, I was born in 1950. So I came of teen age in the 60s, which was a great time. I'll tell you

00:30:55.280 It was a great time.

00:30:57.260 And I'm very thankful to have been in that generation.

00:31:01.540 So there was a lot of more freedom and exploring and stuff like that.

00:31:05.580 And, you know, I was a hippie and I had all the fun that hippies have.

00:31:09.520 Even so, my sexuality was pretty predictable.

00:31:15.020 Heterosexual was pretty predictable in terms of, you know, what I'm going to respond to and that sort of stuff.

00:31:24.420 And in my mid-40s was when I took this first workshop with the Body Electric School. 0.81

00:31:31.500 And this little epiphany that you're reading from there came from that workshop.

00:31:36.620 It was a workshop for women on sexuality.

00:31:40.660 And it was very sweet.

00:31:44.120 It was intense.

00:31:44.760 It was very physical.

00:31:46.260 It was hands-on.

00:31:47.820 And that's what I came out of that workshop with.

00:31:52.200 Most people think of sex as being about some connection with the other person.

00:32:02.460 And that's a major theme for many people, probably most people.

00:32:07.320 Like sex is about the connection and who's this other person and interacting with this other person.

00:32:12.420 And that's great.

00:32:13.520 And at this workshop, and subsequently in the Wheel of Consent practice, which I described earlier, in this workshop, we were, the participants, we were assisting each other in our experiences.

00:32:31.140 But each of us was having our own experience that's about just, this is about me.

00:32:37.160 that this this exploration of who I am as a sexual being is not about the other participant

00:32:45.080 in the room it's about me this is what my body is capable of this is what my body responds to

00:32:53.360 this is how my body likes to move and express itself this is how my body feels in different

00:33:00.280 states of pleasure and arousal. And it had nothing to do with anybody else there. And that was a

00:33:07.580 revelation. I think that was a big part of what enabled this little epiphany because I found out

00:33:15.200 that it's all here in my body. It's all here. It doesn't have to be in response to somebody else

00:33:22.720 wants this thing from me and therefore I'm desirable and therefore I'm worthy and therefore

00:33:28.780 I get turned on because I'm desirable or some that we were taught as young females in the 50s

00:33:36.360 and 60s. And I imagine people still are. This is about me. This is what happens in my body.

00:33:43.120 And that was, I think, a big factor. Plus being in a room full of women and seeing women 1.00

00:33:50.320 as erotic beings in their own right and seeing this wide range of beautiful ways that women

00:34:01.480 expressed and experienced their eroticism was also really affirming because it normalized

00:34:07.780 everything for me. That workshop and other subsequent experiences normalized eroticism

00:34:16.840 and sexual experiences for me instead of, oh, that's something that happens only in private.

00:34:25.240 And, you know, that's true for most people. And being in safe, structured situations where

00:34:34.740 I got to be with and see and experience other people's sexuality that I wasn't lovers with.

00:34:43.760 we were just in this experience together was very affirming like oh this is what it looks like to be

00:34:52.700 a woman who's turned on oh this is what it looks like to be a woman who's expressive oh this is

00:34:58.920 what it looks like to be a woman who's feeling this or that or the other because you know who

00:35:05.780 has that experience as a young person mostly nobody and so we grow up with this idea that well

00:35:12.960 this is the right way to be sexy and it comes from movies and stuff like that of course

00:35:19.100 there are many many ways to be erotic and feel erotic and express your natural eroticism and

00:35:28.360 play with other people and there's just an endless array of options there but we think that well

00:35:36.440 it's supposed to look like xyz and why would we know any different unless we've had some kind of

00:35:44.040 healthy useful exposure so that's where that epiphany came from it came from that workshop

00:35:50.820 and it was a very distinct moment I remember made me wonder well what I've been thinking all those

00:35:56.900 previous 45 years oh I was thinking it always belonged to somebody else but now I realize oh

00:36:04.160 what belongs to me. And that changed my life. Yeah. And you explained that you are a somatic

00:36:13.260 sex educator. And I'm wondering if you could explain the ways somatic sex differs from our

00:36:20.360 current cultural conceptions of what sex is. Well, the somatic in there refers to the method

00:36:29.240 of working with people. So I can go to a psychotherapist and talk, and that's going to be

00:36:36.800 useful for most things up to a point. And another approach would be to have somatic experiences,

00:36:48.460 which means in the body. Soma means body. So for example, moving, moving arms and legs this way

00:36:56.340 or that way or maybe singing or shouting or dancing or moving this way or that way or maybe

00:37:04.060 involving touch in some cases because when I can experience something in my body it's a fundamental

00:37:13.860 change to the way I experience myself. I can talk all day about how I wish I was able to relax when

00:37:23.520 I got turned on. I could talk about it all day long. But having a helper, an assistant, a therapist

00:37:32.360 to guide you through that experience and be with you and keep you safe and support you

00:37:39.720 while you're having that experience in your body, that's a whole different thing.

00:37:47.840 And, of course, working that way with people, you need to be trained.

00:37:53.680 And it's also true that for many sex workers, and I did work as a sex worker for some years in there.

00:38:01.920 um for many people going to a sex worker is often about this being able to experience arousal

00:38:12.780 in an interaction and be held in it in a sense of acceptance and safety oh my gosh that is huge

00:38:22.620 it's just huge and for many people that's what having an experience with a sex worker is about

00:38:31.780 because most sex workers are more accepting of the range of different human sexual experiences

00:38:40.500 than the average person on the street because we've seen it all it doesn't your turn on that

00:38:46.800 doesn't scare me like you're turned on by x y or z and your partner thinks it's really weird i

00:38:53.580 don't think it's weird come on over we'll play with it you know so that simple acceptance of

00:39:02.000 your experience and what it feels like to you can be huge so that's what the that's what the

00:39:10.560 somatic means in that somatic sex educator it just means that i'm working with the body and

00:39:16.140 experience instead of just talking and there's room for both there's room for all different

00:39:23.200 kinds of approaches for different people's needs. Yeah. And I guess through all of this,

00:39:30.740 I'm wondering about trust. On your website, you're right. Without you knowing how to choose

00:39:36.580 and communicate, your body cannot relax into pleasure, no matter how hard you try. It's as

00:39:42.320 simple and as challenging as that. And yeah, so I'm wondering how we can learn to let pleasure

00:39:49.300 settle within the body? Or how can we come to see trust not just as a quality, but as a physically

00:39:56.860 embodied feeling as well? That's a great question. Well, there's a misunderstanding about trust.

00:40:07.540 And that is that you should trust somehow everybody or something. I don't quite get that.

00:40:14.100 No, you shouldn't trust everybody.

00:40:15.820 Are you kidding me?

00:40:17.720 And if you want more trust in your relationships, especially your intimate ones and close ones,

00:40:26.500 then the person you need to trust is yourself.

00:40:31.020 And what I mean by that is you need to be able to trust your ability to say yes and no

00:40:40.620 and to ask for what you want.

00:40:44.100 that's what you need to be able to trust.

00:40:47.160 Well, guess what?

00:40:48.200 You can only trust that to the degree that you have become trustworthy.

00:40:54.640 And being trustworthy depends on learning skills.

00:40:59.980 So if I have the skill to say no or stop or don't do that or do this instead,

00:41:08.460 if I have that skill, then I'm trustworthy to myself.

00:41:12.940 I'm not going to let myself get walked over because I know how to say no.

00:41:19.380 Now I'm going to be trustworthy.

00:41:21.520 And then the trust will come automatically.

00:41:25.460 I will naturally trust myself because I'm trustworthy.

00:41:29.360 And when I trust myself, then I can relax with you.

00:41:33.620 Because if you think, okay, I'm supposed to trust this other person,

00:41:38.780 trust them to what read your mind like that's not i don't recommend that it's not going to work

00:41:46.780 very well you need to trust that they will stop if you say stop but even then what if they don't

00:41:56.120 hear you or what if you're trying to say it but can't quite get the words out what you need to do

00:42:02.600 is be able to trust yourself that you will stop when you mean stop and that you will say no

00:42:10.820 because everybody of course is not trustworthy and even people who are trustworthy make mistakes

00:42:17.860 of course they do we all do so it's not that somebody's necessarily out to get you it could

00:42:25.520 be that they're just clumsy or they didn't hear you or they didn't know what to do and so you need

00:42:32.420 to be able to trust yourself that you'll say no or say stop or move out of the way or whatever you

00:42:38.260 need to do and then now you're trustworthy and then you'll automatically trust yourself and then

00:42:45.120 you relax because you trust yourself so it's kind of a it's kind of a backwards

00:42:50.940 view of trust and then most people think about it in terms of other people

00:42:57.100 piano plays softly

00:43:27.760 There's a quote in the Wheel of Consent, quote, the world we want to live in where people are connected to self, others, and the earth.

00:43:36.720 And so, yeah, just understanding our desire and consent does lead us to a more connected world.

00:43:42.620 And there's also this other quote that I wanted to read from the Wheel of Consent.

00:43:48.660 It's been a long, rich journey, one that I'm still on. As I learned to take responsibility

00:43:55.200 for my desires and my limits, everything became easier. I became more honest about requesting.

00:44:01.560 I learned to appreciate the gifts I had been given. I still have my comfort limits for what

00:44:06.440 I can ask for without shame. And I still have places I give away more than I want to. Of course

00:44:13.520 I do. And I still have places where I'm entitled and unaware of what others are giving up for me,

00:44:19.300 end quote. So there was something about this that I thought about with limits and how is desire and

00:44:27.440 learning to find our limits applicable beyond sexuality and important within life as a whole?

00:44:36.020 Well, we do have limits to what we're willing to do for other people.

00:44:41.160 i may be willing to pick you up at the airport i may not i may be willing to clean out the barn i

00:44:49.480 may not you know we all have limits to what we're willing to do for each other and many of us have

00:44:57.980 been taught to disregard our own personal limits and say yes no matter what because it wasn't safe

00:45:05.340 to say no you get in trouble if you say no or you get berated or you get hit or you someone leaves

00:45:12.800 you know so we all have times in which we say yes when we would really rather say no

00:45:19.660 and of course there are times when you just got to get up and do it anyway you got to get in the

00:45:25.760 middle of night change the diaper and feed the baby like that's just that's not an option even

00:45:31.260 if you don't feel like it, just some things just have to be done. So there is that. I'm not negating

00:45:36.460 that. But in a more optional setting, and we have ways that we work overtime and don't ask for

00:45:45.260 overtime pay or all kinds of different situations. And it's just part of human life. I don't know

00:45:52.160 any way around that. And sometimes people will say, oh, I should be more generous. And generosity

00:45:59.800 is also kind of surprising in that what makes you generous is having a limit because if I

00:46:09.280 know that my limit is I can pick you up at the airport if it's before 11 p.m then then if it's

00:46:18.580 before 11 p.m I'm totally happy to do it and I'm totally generous with it because I know what my

00:46:24.240 limit is. If I don't know how to set that limit, I'm going to say yes to 12 o'clock or one o'clock.

00:46:32.220 I'm going to be miserable and you're going to be miserable and I'm going to resent you and I'm 0.89

00:46:36.380 going to resent me. So it's actually getting clear on what our limits are. What is it that I can give 0.51

00:46:47.520 with a full heart I may not enjoy going to the airport to pick you up but for you I'm willing

00:46:54.280 to do it because you matter to me so I can give you that gift with a full heart it's much easier

00:47:00.560 to do when I know what my limits are yeah again like we have limits so does the earth and if we're

00:47:10.340 not in tune with our own limits it's going to be pretty hard to start to have any type of

00:47:15.580 understanding or empathy for limits beyond our own individual bodies and minds. And I guess

00:47:24.180 that kind of brings up this idea of... There's an infant with us. You'll probably hear her

00:47:30.800 waking up from her nap. I am loving those little sounds.

00:47:36.420 Oh, good. Yeah. She's with us. She's learning about consent at a real early age through this

00:47:43.560 conversation. But yeah, I think for me, it's bringing up the shadow side. And you wrote in

00:47:51.740 The Wheel of Consent, the circle represents consent, your agreement. Inside the circle,

00:47:57.540 there is a gift given and a gift received. Outside the circle, without consent, the same action

00:48:03.400 becomes stealing, abusing, et cetera. And so, yeah, I just feel like understanding the shadow

00:48:10.840 side to these actions. Yeah. I mean, I don't want to sound too simple on this, but why is it

00:48:17.920 important to understand the shadow side and to consider the whole spectrum of giving and receiving?

00:48:24.380 Hmm. It seems to be useful to notice where your actions fit on this picture because

00:48:36.320 because they're happening anyway that i didn't invent all those things i just noticed that oh

00:48:43.540 this is this is what's happening and so i think it can be helpful to put some context in it for

00:48:51.660 yourself and also to notice that if you're outside the wheel if you're outside of the circle

00:48:58.740 and so you're stealing you're manipulating or pressuring or coercing or other stuff

00:49:04.560 it's because you didn't make an agreement and if you want to avoid the shadow part then learn how

00:49:19.380 to make an agreement and for the most part that means learn how to ask for what you want

00:49:25.400 and that's hard that we as we've talked about already that's hard but that's where the that's

00:49:33.500 where integrity lives. And I think it's also helpful to remember that we have all been all

00:49:40.740 over those shadows. You've been there. I've been there. Everybody's been there. Like it's,

00:49:46.480 it's nothing to be ashamed of or beat yourself up about. What it is, is to be able to notice,

00:49:55.000 oh, that's why I did that. Because I was afraid to ask for what I wanted.

00:50:00.740 or I was afraid to hear a no

00:50:03.500 or I didn't respect the no that I heard.

00:50:07.080 Why didn't I?

00:50:08.360 I just didn't want to feel sad or whatever it is,

00:50:13.120 you know, because I just wanted what I wanted.

00:50:16.100 So I think it can help to see them out there in the diagram

00:50:20.140 just to give some perspective because we've all been there.

00:50:24.740 And the way to get out of the shadows is to get inside the quadrants

00:50:29.740 And the way you do that is to ask for what you want.

00:50:33.160 Oh, Betty, this has been such a mind-expanding and heart-opening conversation.

00:50:39.360 I've really enjoyed this time.

00:50:42.380 And as we come to a close, I would just love to think through the spiritual element of

00:50:47.300 Eros and sexuality.

00:50:49.640 You wrote, quote, Eros became something of a spiritual path for me.

00:50:54.700 What is the nature of this force within me?

00:50:57.520 What does it mean to have a body capable of this much pleasure? And perhaps ironically,

00:51:03.720 why is it that the more I attend to my body experience, the more spiritual it feels?

00:51:10.080 For that matter, what is spiritual anyway? Heck, what is sex anyway? We experimented with movement,

00:51:17.240 play, touch, and massage, and we had much laughter and many tears. For this journey,

00:51:22.720 I am also thankful. How can desire and the journey of learning how to deeply feel

00:51:29.540 really fit into and even lead our spiritual journey? It kind of depends on how you define

00:51:37.200 spiritual, which I don't really know what it means anymore. What I do know is that,

00:51:44.720 as I said there, when I attended more and more completely to my physical sensation,

00:51:52.720 Just the sensation that it felt more, the whole thing felt more spiritual to me, meaning that it felt more connected to transcendent states and that it had more depth of meaning.

00:52:09.760 And now as I look at it, I think it's just different brain functions, frankly.

00:52:14.560 It's just like when we're in deep, physical, peaceful pleasure, different parts of our brains kind of fade out and go to sleep and other parts wake up.

00:52:28.840 And the part that wakes up when you do that is this part that creates a sense of oneness with all that is.

00:52:36.460 It's just part of our brain function and it's a wonderful part.

00:52:40.040 Thank goodness.

00:52:40.580 and um so i don't i don't attach any mystical significance like something is happening on

00:52:50.940 some mystical plane i think it's just like one of the amazing gifts of having these brains that

00:52:57.820 we do that work the way they do and so in thinking of what i think of as spiritual now i think of it

00:53:03.740 more as does this experience make you more compassionate and does it make you have more

00:53:12.040 integrity and take more responsibility for yourself? That's all I want to know. I don't

00:53:16.500 want to know if you can achieve altered states. I don't give a flip. What I want to know is does

00:53:23.920 it make you more compassionate? Does it increase your integrity? By which I mean taking responsibility

00:53:30.200 for yourself. That's the kind of spirituality that I'm interested in. I'm not interested in

00:53:35.660 blissful states that make you feel that you're part of all that is. That's wonderful. It's great.

00:53:42.740 But it doesn't answer anything unless it makes you more compassionate and more responsible.

00:53:53.500 Thanks for listening to For the Wild. The music in today's episode is by Von Eide and Rohind.

00:54:00.200 For the Wild is created by Ayanna Young, Erica Ekrem, Julia Jackson, Jackson Krupp,

00:54:07.700 Jose Alejandro Rivera, Bailey Bigger, and Evan Tenenbaum.

00:54:11.800 Nothing's as sweet

00:54:23.820 Nothing's as sweet

00:54:30.080 As when you come to me in your sleep

00:54:38.000 Come to me and you'll see

00:54:44.840 The things I see

00:55:08.000 guitar solo

00:55:38.000 Soft-spoken, real tired

00:55:53.160 I know you've been

00:55:56.400 Soft-spoken, real tired

00:56:00.140 I know you've been

00:56:03.680 Soft-spoken, real tired

00:56:07.140 I know you've been

00:56:37.140 Thank you.

00:57:07.140 Thank you.

00:57:37.140 You

For The Wild - November 29, 2023

BETTY MARTIN on The Language of Consent ⧸358

Episode Stats

Transcript