Exploring Communication and consent
Hello sexy followers
This is for everyone who wants to be a better lover and get more from intimate encounters…
I have spent the last four days on a course in South Africa and I just felt to share some of my experience and learning from the course. It was fascinating to watch how people inter relate with each other, especially when it comes to boundaries asking for what you would like and saying no.
This really is such a big subject and so important especially when we are relating to each other from our most vulnerable place which is through our sexual expression. I just want to talk about the importance of being able to communicate your desires, what you would like, what you wouldn't like and what you would like to do with me as well as the empowerment that comes from knowing your boundaries and communicating your no.
I sat there for four days and watched people really struggle with this, and while you may think it was such a simple concept actually putting it into practice brings so many challenges. Fear of asking for what you want a fear of being rejected and hearing a no to what you want, thoughts of what the other person will think of you because you have asked for what you want. Questions around is it safe to ask for what I want and what if I offend the other person in my requests.
A fear of hearing a no from someone else and making the mistake of turning it into something about yourself. To exemplify I ask someone if they want to give me a massage and they said no, it would be foolish for me to think this no is personal and turn it into something about me. This would be a very shadowy behaviour, what I did witness is that people then project they're shit all over another person which is not conclusive to clean behaviour.
What I really want to bring to your attention to is the need for a very clear concise boundaries, the need to be able to communicate these boundaries and the need to be able to hear and accept other peoples boundaries without making it about yourself.
If you imagine playing a game of tennis where there are no guidelines on the floor, there is no court mapped out and there is no net. Can you imagine how chaotic that game would be and how it would not flow as it should. You would have two people playing a game with no rules of engagement. This for me is very similar to having intimate sexual contact with another person with no rules of engagement. It creates uncertainty, insecurity and miss trust, and when these things come into play it is sure to affect the quality of how we relate to each other and the quality of an intimate enclounter.
There was an experiment done with children in a sandpit and this relates to boundaries. When the children in the sandpit didn’t have a clear boundary of where the edge is the tended to bunch up in the middle. As soon as a boundary was put around the sandpit the children knew where the boundary was and felt safe within this boundary and thus within the safety it enabled the children to spread out and explore the whole of the sandpit.
Let’s just take this example of the children in the sand pit and use it as an example of intimate sexual engagement between two adults and let's remember that we are indeed adults. If we have set boundaries around a sexual encounter, it enables us to feel safe, and it is in this feeling safe that we are able to expand and explore. And this is why it is so fundamentally important understand how to communicate and how to hear another person’s no effectively. This is why it is important to be able to ask for what you want and take a chance, that the other person may say no. I know this sounds scary as we are making ourselves vulnerable to rejection, but it is in this vulnerability that we find our power to play.
There are so many times and we don’t effectively communicate and it causes confusion. I am going to give you one of many examples that I have. I've been out with a guy and we pull up outside his house and he asks me if I want to come in for coffee. This statement ‘do you want to come in for coffee?’, can be muddy. So quite often what the guy would mean is do you want to come in for sex or a kiss and cuddle, but it is been wrapped up in asking do you want to come in for coffee. I could be quite naïve and think I was going into his house for coffee only to find that he thinks I have said yes to kisses and cuddles and sex. Do you see how this could be very confusing? What happens is a game starts playing out. This isn't a good place to be in my opinion. I would much rather when I pulled up outside the guys house have him state his clear intention. If he was to say do you want to come in for kisses and cuddles, and sex, I don't know exactly where I stand I can either make a full empowered yes or a full empowered no. Thus there is no game playing out and no one is trying to second guess the other.
This brings me neatly on to the Wheel of Consent by Betty Martin and I will share a link to some of her free videos at the bottom of this article.
This is such an important piece of work and really take syou into the difference of serving and accepting and taking and allowing. I will share with you I have met many a person who has tried to convince me that they are giving when I know they are taking. This is yucky and is is probably one of the biggest challenges I see. While I understand that this concept can be very challenging for some, it is in that challenging that we open up into learning and developing new skills to relate safely and effectively to other people.
I bring you an offering, a three hour explorative session to explore the wheel of consent with me. To learn how to communicate your boundaries and also look at what lies behind your struggle to communicate your boundaries. To learn how to hear a no without your own personal judgement and projection, and to understand what lies behind your personal judgements and projections should they come up. We will explore the wheel of consent and Andrew Barnes Relationship map in tandem.
We will spend three hours together exploring asking for what we want and been met in this within the other persons boundaries.
We will explore the difference between giving and taking. And with this exploration will come to the realisation of why a lot of intimate relationships fail. For anyone who wants to become a better lover this work is for you. We will explore the difference between allowing and receiving and how this feels in your body. We will look at how we relate to each other from the masculine and feminine energy.
I did a massage with another person attending the course who had not come into contact with a woman who can ask for what they want. I spent 90 minutes asking him for what I wanted and been met in that within his boundaries. At the end of the session this person said it was an absolute revelation be with someone who can ask clearly and concisely for what they want and be comfortable with his no.
I really believe that if you want to be a better lover, move on from watching porn on the Internet and thinking that is how sex happens because it’s not. If you don’t believe me look at how a porn film is made. If you really want to be a better lover whether you are male or female I firmly believe that once you understand how to interrelate with another person effectively without bringing in the shadow and have the ability of clear, concise, communication without fear, shame, judgement or worry of rejection then everything else will flow from there.
Once you have the communication the technique will flow, because what you will find happen is that when you encourage other people to communicate effectively with you this will open up opportunities to develop technique.
You will also find that through communication you will create a safe space and as I have previously said when people feel safe they open to exploring. It’s that age old saying paradoxically that the safer you feel the higher you will fly.
Throughout this a three hour exploration of the wheel of consent I will also give you tips of how to open the other person up to be able to communicate effectively.
So here is the invitation all you people out there want to be a better lover and have more fulfilling sexual encounters I invite you to explore with me the Wheel of Consent and go on a journey of spreading our wings a little further and flying a little higher.
When I have done these sessions in the past it has been so beneficial but we have also had so much fun and so much laughter and many realisations.
If anyone has anything they wish to ask me about or clarify on then please feel free to reach out to me as always I am open sensible, timely communication.
Kristina J – Erotic adventurer and creator of safe play spaces.
Wheel of Consent – Betty Martin
