CIIS Public Programs Podcast

TRANSCRIPT

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This is the CIIS Public Programs Podcast, featuring talks and conversations recorded live by California Institute of Integral Studies, a non-profit university located in San Francisco on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone Land. 

For over 40 years Dr. Betty Martin has explored the nuances of consent. As a hands-on practitioner, chiropractor, somatic sex educator, certified surrogate partner and sacred intimate, Dr. Martin noticed a pattern in her client sessions wherein many clients would “allow” or go along with discomfort or unease rather than speak up for what they wanted or didn’t want. Dr. Martin discovered there was a major component of consent missing for people—the confidence that we have a choice about what is happening to us.

In her framework and book, The Wheel of Consent, Dr. Martin traces the fundamental roots of consent back to our childhood conditioning. As children, many are taught that to be “good” we must ignore our body’s discomfort and be compliant.  As adults, this conditioning remains with us until we unlearn it. The implications of this approach to consent education extends beyond touch and intimate relationships. When we forget how to notice what we really want, we lose our inner compass. When we continue to go along with things we don’t feel are right, we lose our ability to speak up against injustice. 

In this episode, Dr. Martin is joined by Poarch Creek Two-Spirit Indigiqueer soma-cultural sex therapist, sexuality educator, writer, activist, and musician Dr. Roger Kuhn for an empowering conversation on the psychology of consent. Drawing upon her life’s work and The Wheel of Consent, Dr. Martin shares deeply nuanced ways to practice consent as an agreement that brings integrity, responsibility, and empowerment into human interaction—starting with touch and relationships—and further expanding our understanding of consent to social issues of equality and justice. 

This episode was recorded during a live online event on October 30th, 2024. You can also watch it on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube channel. A transcript is available at ciispod.com. To find out more about CIIS and public programs like this one, visit our website ciis.edu and connect with us on social media @ciispubprograms.

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Dr. Roger Kuhn: [Indigenous Language Greeting] Greetings and welcome. My name is Dr. Roger Kuhn. I come from the Porch Creek Nation. Some folks just call me Rog, and Betty, please feel free just to call me Rog tonight. It is an absolute pleasure to be with you here tonight. 

Dr. Betty Martin: Thank you. 

Roger: When I think of Betty Martin, I think of the word pleasure. I just want to let the audience know right up there.

Betty: Ooh, I like that. 

Roger: When I think of Betty Martin, I think of pleasure and I have had this sensation of pleasure in my body all day today, knowing that this conversation was going happen, so thank you so much for just the invitation for tonight, and to be in community with you and really to share the gift of your work with the CIIS audience. And thank you everybody at CIIS for that fabulous introduction. Is there anything that you want to say to the audience tonight before we get started? 

Betty: No.

Roger: Ok. Lots of stuff will come up.

Betty: Lots of stuff will come up.

Roger: Just to give everybody a heads up, I do know Betty. I've known Betty for a few years now. I had the pleasure of, and you're going to hear that word pleasure a lot tonight, –

Betty: I’m liking it already.

Roger: I had the pleasure of being in conversation with a group of practitioners a couple of years ago, and I didn't know who was going to be there beforehand. All of a sudden Betty Martin pops up on the screen, and I was a little bit starstruck. I was like, oh my goodness, here's this person whose work I so admire, and now I am teaching this person, and then a few years later I had an opportunity to actually work with you, and we've kept in contact ever since then, so it is a real joy. I want to start off really asking you about the Wheel of Consent. Many of our audience members tonight may have never heard of the Wheel, and I know as someone that is learning how to facilitate the Wheel of Consent, we have to do our elevator pitch. So I thought I'm going to ask the originator, for maybe the original, or maybe it's changed a little over the years, what is your elevator pitch, Betty, when you're discussing the Wheel of Consent with folks who may have never heard of it before? 

Betty: That's a great question, my elevator pitch. Well, you know, when you're touching someone, are you doing what they want, or are you doing what you want, and what's the difference, and why does it matter? And that's basically what the Wheel of Consent is about. 

Roger: Yeah, what's the difference and why does it matter? 

Betty: Yeah, and why do we need to know how to do both? 

Roger: And where would you let folks know, like, you got inspired by this in some particular way? Where did it come from? 

Betty: Well, I was on a personal journey in my own erotic awakening in my mid-40s, and I went to a bunch of workshops, mostly with the Body Electric School, and at one of them we played a game called the Three Minute Game, and the Three Minute Game is a game for two people, and you take turns asking each other these two questions. One question is, what do you want me to do to you for three minutes? I can think of some fun things I might like you to do to me for three minutes, thank you. And the other question is, what do you want to do to me for three minutes? It's a very different question, creates kind of the opposite dynamic, but likewise I can think of some fun things I might want to do to you for three minutes. And so by, when we first played that in the workshop, it was immediately obvious that we're taking turns, and that the four dynamics that are created are different. And in two of those rounds I'm doing, and in two of those rounds I'm done to. That's one way to differentiate. And in two of those rounds they're for me, and two of those rounds they're for you. But they're not the same ones as the doing and done to, so you end up with four rounds, which you can chart in a matrix. I'm doing to you what I want, or I'm doing to you what you want. And the experience of that's going to be quite different. And you are doing to me what you want, and you are doing to me what I want. So the who wants it, who's it for, and the who's doing, overlap in that way. And I started, I learned this in the workshop, it was a lot of fun, I kind of put it on the shelf in the closet, gathering dust. And then when I started seeing clients, I took it out, dusted it off, and I thought, okay, if I'm talking with a client, getting the history and the talking, all that stuff, and then we need a way to transition into the touching part of the session. I thought, oh, this will be a good way to sort of get started and see how comfortable they are and stuff. And it did show me that and showed me a lot more. And it showed me as I kept doing it with clients, it showed me, oh, this is where everyone gets stuck. Oh, this is where people get lost. Oh, this is where people have no idea what they want. Or this is where people get confused about who it's for. Or this is where people have trouble saying no or communicating any of that. So as I just kept playing with it with more and more clients, excuse me, I noticed that, oh, this shows a lot about what's going on for a person. And eventually I came to see that whatever stuff you have about relationship, it's going to show up here in one of those quadrants or the other. And then I got pretty obsessed with it and just kept diving in and just noticing more and more. But it came from that three minute game. What do you want me to do to you? What do you want to do to me? Simple questions, but seems no one's really asking that. 

Roger: Simple questions with potentially very profound results. Not just in the touch, though, and the way someone may feel asking for what they want. Also telling someone no. I don't want to do that. Yeah. I just want to point out for our listeners tonight, those that are here with us live and those that will be listening to this recording afterward, BettyMartin.org is a valuable resource where you can actually find a lot of downloads, including that Matrix Wheel chart you were talking about. There's also phenomenal videos and there's even a flyer that you can download that explains more about the three minute game. These are all available for free on Betty's website, BettyMartin.org. And also, let's quickly plug your book for a moment, The Art of Giving and Receiving. 

Betty: The Art of Receiving and Giving. 

Roger: Sorry, is that it, The Art of Receiving and Giving? The Art of Receiving and Giving. Thank you for the gentle correction. The Art of Receiving and Giving by Betty Martin and then it was co-authored by Robin. 

Betty: Yeah. 

Roger: Yeah, wonderful. 

Betty: Yeah. 

Roger: I want to just point out the quadrants for those that don't know. Those quadrants are the Serve, Take, Allow,-- Serve, Take, Accept and Allow quadrants. And one of the things that I've been really interested in is how did you even come up with those names? I get the, what do you want to do? Like Serve, Take, how did those names come about? 

Betty: Oh, that's a good question because it's, well let me back up just a moment. It's part of the elevator speech. The Wheel of Consent is a practice in taking apart, receiving and giving. So it's either all about me, what I want and within your limits, of course, or it's all about you and what you want, again, within my limits. And so you're doing them only one at a time. You're either receiving a gift or you're giving a gift and you're not trying to do them both at once. So it's helpful to see it as a practice because you don't want to live your whole life trying to figure out who everything is for. Because we're not always in that situation of giving or receiving a gift. But having a practice in which you do that teaches you a lot about yourself, gives you some experiences that will happen no other way. And so it took me some years to figure out that, oh, this is a practice. This, it doesn't replace everything that you're already doing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so, so what was your question again? 

Roger: The question is about how did you name, serve, take, accept, allow? 

Betty: Oh yeah. So, yeah. So, so what I noticed was what most people would call give and receive. For example, I'm giving you a massage. I'm touching you. It's for your benefit. I'm doing it the way you want. Most people would call that dynamic give and receive. But if I'm touching you for my enjoyment and you're giving me the gift of access to you, to your body or whatever part of your body we've agreed on, then I'm doing, but it's for me, you're giving the gift. So that's a form of receiving a gift also. But it, so, so I couldn't call them receive and give because receive and give is a much bigger thing than who is doing. And so I needed some different words. And serve was pretty obvious because when I'm serving, I'm doing what you want. And take, take is kind of a difficult word for a lot of people because when I say the word take, what you hear is steal. 

Roger: Yes. 

Betty: And that's not the case. It's, it's when I'm taking, I'm receiving a gift that you're giving me. And actually this, this idea of take came from a childhood memory of Thanksgiving at my parents' house. And there was always a pecan pie and stuff. And typically there'd be some leftover. So my mom would say, y'all take that home with you now. And so taking meant you, you pick up something and you walk out, you know, so it, it implies that or it describes a situation in which I'm receiving a gift, but I have to reach out and pick it up. It's not just put in my hand. Another example would be, I have pears in the tree in my yard. I can pick them and bring them over to you in a basket, or I can say, come on over and pick the pears anytime. It's still a gift. But in the second situation, you are taking action to collect the gift. It's a different dynamic. So that's where, that's where the name take came from. And it's unfortunate that it has negative connotation sometimes, but that's not what we're talking about. And I could not find another word for it. It was just like, like, I couldn't find another word. Yeah. 

Roger: One of the things that I have noticed in my clinical work as I've introduced the three minute game into my clinical practice with couples and with individuals who may be in multi-partner configurations and or looking for partnership, etc. is when then the wheel is introduced, and particularly that quadrant, there is this like, oh, this brace of like, take, I don't want to take because it's so loaded for so many folks. And that brings us to an aspect of the wheel that I'm very interested in from a, you know, maybe looking at from like as a social scientist, you know, that that realm of all the things that take may be associated with that are actually outside of the realm of consent, like stealing, for example, right? Like land theft, like so many other things that we can name in that process. And I do want to get to that. We're going to get to that later on in our conversation. There was something you said a moment ago that I wanted to ask you to actually have written that down as a question. You talked about limits. A moment ago, and I've also heard you talk about the difference between boundaries and limits. And that is a word, those words, I think are oftentimes interchanged in our language. When I heard you in one of your, I think it was in the Like a Pro workshop, you really gave a relatively clear differentiation between boundaries and limitations. And I'm hoping that you'll share that with us tonight. Your perspective around the difference between a boundary versus a limitation, in particular as it maybe relates to the wheel of consent and maybe then how we apply that in our day to day lived experiences. 

Betty: Yeah, yeah. Well, first I distinguish between a limit and a limitation. Because the– boundary is the word that's used in a lot of different ways. And it might mean something you don't want to do. It might mean something that you own. It might mean something that you're opposed to or something like that. And it chances are if you're arguing with somebody about boundaries, you're probably using two different meanings of the word because it means so many different things. Or it gets used to mean different things. And so the way I use it, and you don't have to use it this way, but I had to make some distinction. The way I use it is a boundary is the perimeter of what's mine. Things that I'm responsible for and have a right to, I think of as my domain. And I learned this from a friend who had a wolf sanctuary. And the wolves – she had several families of them – they could see each other through the chain link fence. But they were perfectly peaceful with each other. Because they knew what they were responsible for and what they had a right to was in this piece of dirt that they're on. And so I started thinking of that in terms of boundaries. Like, wait a minute. What is it that I have a right to and that I'm responsible for? And I think in general, I'd say my body, my thoughts, my feelings, my desires, my fears, all that stuff. And so I think of boundary as the perimeter, the fence around my piece of dirt. And I think of limits as something that I'm not willing to do or not willing to participate in. Well, the perimeter of my domain, that doesn't change. You know, those things are always, I'm always responsible for them. But what I'm willing to do changes all the time. Of course it does, as it should. So I think the important thing to notice about the difference between those two and you can you can use them in any way. My friend Marsha Paczinski uses them the opposite way I do. That doesn't matter. What matters is noticing that there are some things that that I'm always responsible for that doesn't change. And there are other things that change all the time. And they should change depending on the situation, the day, the person, you know. And so that's how I that's how I use those words. And yeah, it's just a way to distinguish and recognize the fact that some things are going to change. So if you're arguing, well, boundaries don't change, oh, boundaries do change. It's probably because you're using the word boundaries to do different things. 

Roger: I think operational definitions sometimes can be incredibly useful. And I want to ask you really about let's let's define consent. Right. So yeah, let's talk about like how are how are you defining the word consent? 

Betty: That's a great question. I have been teaching this stuff for 15 years or so. And a couple years ago I thought, you know, I should look this up in the dictionary. So I did and I was a little surprised. But as I reflect on it, I'm not surprised at all. Because consent in the dictionary basically means saying yes. So I say yes to something that you want to do. Or, you know, and this is this is where giving consent the expression giving consent or getting consent comes from. If I'm if I want something from you have to get your consent, I have to get a yes out of you somehow. And that's an important dynamic. But it is not the only one. And it's very incomplete. It's a fine place to start, but it's not going to lead you to very much fun. And so and the other thing I think that gets it kind of shows up in the public discourse about consent is that is this idea of the gateway gatekeeper model, which is I'm holding the gate. If you want in, I can either open it or close it. And so I have the goodies. You want the goodies. You have to get me to open the gate. And and if you hear the word, if you hear somebody say, get consent or give consent, chances are you're in that sort of gatekeeper mindset. And I'm using consent in a much broader sense, as are many people, in a much broader sense of let's find out what sounds fun together and figure out how to do that. That's a very different question and a very different process of arriving at that. And that's how I think of consent really the wheel of consent should be called the wheel of agreement, but it's too late. So, you know, yeah, so technically consent means getting a yes. And there’s more to it.

Roger: That's right. I've been really playing around with the idea myself around, you know, how do people feel their yes. How do you know how do you really know what your yes is. And sometimes we know what our yes is by knowing our no. And that's something that I'm really intrigued by, you know, from a somatic perspective I, you know, I'm a somatic psychotherapist in addition to being a sex therapist and so the body is so incredibly important to me and, and I know from a personal experience that listening to my body really is where those answers lie. And so many folks I'm sure you've had your experiences that yourself that don't know how to feel into the body. Yeah. Any advice you can give to someone to even like how do they know their no so they can get to their yes. 

Betty: Oh boy. You go to a somatic psychotherapist.

Roger:  Rogerjkuhn.com, folks. 

Betty: Yeah, yeah. It's– That's a great question because it's not like most of us are taught to really trust our bodies. Because, yeah, I mean, yeah, seems like for most of us, our upbringing is don't trust your body and do what I say instead and you know sit in the desk in the school all day and all that stuff. And I think a lot of people in our modern culture are pretty cut off from knowing themselves very well somatically. Yeah. In the three minute game. It's built in a little bit in that you're slowing way down and you're taking a pause to notice and so forth, but there's a lot more that people can experiment with with with breath breathing and breath work and there's a whole body of work around that. There's movement, authentic movement, contact improv, all kinds of ways to explore. Oh wait, when I change my posture. Oh, it changes how I feel. And there's exercises like noticing your fingers and you know where's the blood going and there's just lots of ways therapeutically that people explore that and play with it, both in session and in workshops and I guess I kind of learned through going to lots of workshops and things. Also, growing up as a hippie helped. Lots of lots of hot springs. 

Roger: That'll do it. As I was listening to you I was thinking around how many of us that grow up and when I talk about the culture I'm really speak specifically speaking of those of us that grew up or have lived for a long time in the USA, that, you know, access to our bodies, oftentimes doesn't feel like our own, even in my own experience you know thinking that oh my gosh when I'm 18 I have to register for the draft, which means that at any time my body now belongs to someone else and I that that that state, it was a fear of mine my entire childhood through my adolescence. Like, I don't want to turn 18, I don't want to lose the autonomy, what little autonomy I have of my body. And that's something almost like how I really began to get really curious about feelings in my body because, you know, having been born in the body that I was born in, you know, race and ethnicity aside you know having been born with a penis has given me a ton of privilege in the world. Right. It's given me so much privilege so much I don't even realize half the time how much privilege I have just because of how I was born, though, there was that piece then that like, oh, because I was born this way that means I might have to go to war and I might have to kill someone and that’s so outside of what I would deem, like I'm consenting to, like I don't want to do that, and there's a way that I know that I shut my body down and only through really through sexual expression, did I actually feel that I can reclaim some of my autonomy with with my body and that particular way that I took a lot of sometimes deprogramming that I was my body was owed to the US government or my body was owed to war or some some way in that way that was very very intense for me and I think it's a big part of how I got into the somatic world is really healing that that that tightness that I felt, that hypervigilance I felt in my body for so long. And then you know there's that idea of, you know, when when you reached out to me and said hey you know like I'm interested in doing this chat. I felt such a yes like it was like an immediate like this, it just like it was like deep within the toes, swirling all through my body. It was guttural it was pelvic it was cerebral it was outside and all those ways and that to me felt like such a yes– I knew it I do. I was not a doubt in my mind that yes, I wanted to be with Betty Martin in conversation in this way. And that is just one way that I understand my yes like when it is like enthusiastic when it's exciting. And then sometimes the yes isn't always exciting sometimes the yes is, it's really heartfelt or it's really, there can be a lot of grief associated with a yes. Letting go is a form of yes as well. And that is, that's what I find so intriguing about your work and what what you've offered folks is there's this multi dimensional way of thinking about so much of this and I know I was thinking back to that that that time that I was in person with you in Seattle and how it was like, explained to you like you know that I think of the wheel like almost like the sphere more of a sphere like floating sphere in the world as opposed to this, you know, on a paper. Because it's so it's just, you can move in all of these different ways. Hang out and all of these different locations up down diagonal and there's something really profound about that for me. And that leads me to really wanting to talk a little bit about understanding your modality. And I really wanted to know any advice that you had for the listeners that are out there tonight who also have an idea and or a modality. How do you bring this out into the world, how do you take something that is original and or built off of like the three minute game or built off of something and say, I'm going to now start sharing this with folks. I'm just curious like what that process was like for you. How did you trust yourself and trust the work enough to start to offer this. 

Betty: Oh, that's a great question. Um, well I started small. I started talking to a few friends who like, oh yeah what Betty's got something you're good you know. And I started giving a few little short evening workshops to kind of explore teaching it. I went to a couple of sex educator conferences and presented for an hour or two and and what surprised me was that people found it really useful. Like, I mean I thought it was kind of cool, but it was just sort of this glitch of my engineering brain to draw this, you know, that was kind of cool but, but it turned out that it was really useful for people and light bulbs would go off. And that was encouraging to me because, oh, it makes sense. You know, I'll present a little more. And so, I think I initially offered a workshop for sex workers, because I was doing sex work at the time. In 07 maybe something like that. And, you know, half a dozen, eight or 10 people or something, you know, and the wheel of consent was like two hours on Saturday afternoon. It was like Friday night Saturday Sunday. And the wheel of consent was this little thing because I thought, oh, I'll just draw it out and it'll be obvious, but it wasn't obvious. And gradually, the wheel of consent part of the workshop grew and grew, and then the workshop became three days, and then became four days and now it's five days. I don't think we're going to get any bigger. Five days, and the wheel of consent is the whole thing. So it was gradual. And I, and the other thing that was really helpful was seeing where people got confused or lost or had questions. Because the way my mind works is that I love to have questions like that and it helps me, it helps me to hone what it is that I'm actually trying to say. And whereas if it was just me standing up in front of the class, you know, whatever, but seeing where people got confused or lost helped me hone what is it that I'm actually trying to say here. And so that was very helpful in in in honing the whole thing. Yeah. And playing it with hundreds of clients and students. I think if I had not had all those clients to play it with and I just had two or three friends, I would have never noticed all this stuff. And I'm pretty confident that if anybody would take the three minute game and play it with a hundred people, you'd probably come up with the same stuff. I mean, it was just, it was just noticing what was happening in front of me. Yeah, it wasn't really making stuff up. It was just noticing 

Roger: And noticing is a big part of the work. And choosing is a big part of the work as well. So it's, you know, talking to your community, offering workshops, possibly speaking at conferences. I know you wrote a book 

Betty: That came much later. 

Roger: That came later. Doing podcasts like this, just sort of getting yourself out there is a way that you can bring these modalities into the world. 

Betty: Yeah, podcasts are a great way these days. If you're comfortable talking. Yeah.

Roger: Many of the CIIS audience is made up of either therapy students, folks who have maybe graduated through a therapy degree with therapy degree at CIIS. And how do you envision the Wheel of Consent being used as what I'm going to call a therapy experiential and potentially then as a treatment modality. Whether that be like with with clinicians or with counselors and or with coaches. 

Betty: That's a great question. I, in my somatic sex education practice, I, because I, because experiential I was touching people and they were touching me. That's not the case with a lot of people, of course, but we would play the three minute game or a variation thereof. And and it was through the experience of, okay, I'm asking how do you want me to touch you for a few minutes right now. And they would have whatever feelings they have about it. Oh, my gosh. I have no one's ever asked me that or that you're supposed to know or I'm embarrassed to ask or all of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And just the asking the question is what brought it all up and holding the space for their experience is what brought it all up. That wasn't really much to do. Just ask the question. And if I was working with a couple, I'd have them ask each other the questions and then see what came up and working with a couple, all kinds of dynamics will come up that they didn't notice before. But boy, it'll shine a light on it. That's for sure. And so, yeah, when I was working as a surrogate partner, same thing. It was just so rich to see, yeah, what it brought up for people and and again, holding the space for them to have their experience and have their feels about whatever it was. And if you are not a touch professional, maybe you're a psychotherapist or something. What doesn't work so well is to give it his homework and send them home because they'll be making mistakes that they don't notice. For example, one partner will say, how do you want me to touch you? And the other partner will say, well, you can such and such, I guess. Which doesn't answer the question. It's very different. It's like one person said, what do you want? And the other person said, well, what do I not mind terribly much? That's a very different question. But if they don't have any experience with it, they'll think that, OK, that counts. But it's it doesn't. So it doesn't always work well to just give them the homework and send them home because they they won't notice those things. Whereas if it's a couple, you have them do it in front of you. So anyway, if you're if you're working in a non touch modality, you can do the verbal parts of it with your client so that they're getting it. And even that will bring a lot of stuff up. 

Roger: Yeah. Thank you for that. When I was learning like sex therapy, right, as like how to facilitate sex therapy, we learned a modality called Sensate Focus. And at the time, you know, that was like I remember being like, is this it? This is this is this what we give folks? Because I was like thinking like there there's so much that's missing here. There's there's all of this stuff that's not that's not being talked about. And and my clients honestly just weren't really enjoying it. It was just a lot of them thought it was kind of boring. And I felt a little suck like, oh, gosh, that's what I know. That's what I was given. It was actually a conversation I was having with someone else that that, you know, sort of casually mentioned like the three minute game and the Wheel of Consent. And I was like, well, what's that? And then it was like, oh, you know, wow, this is this is amazing. And so I really felt almost like with with a lot of the privilege that I have to be able to to teach a lot of sex therapists and different certification programs, including at CIIS and different schools across the U.S. To be able to introduce them to this just as like a concept for the first time and every single time I have done this, everybody I can see everybody's eyes just going like, wow, this is phenomenal. And I remember it was actually at CIIS. There was a I was doing a just a demo on the Wheel of Consent in the three minute game. And one of the students commented afterwards that like the temperature in the room has risen because there was something that was happening between– You know, and it wasn't it was not sexual at all. It was, you know, very– but there was something about witnessing someone asking for what they wanted me saying yes and or saying no. And the collaboration that comes from that people really figuring out how do I what do I really want? And that question, too, of like, you know, will you massage my shoulders for three minutes? It's like, well, I need to know more about the kind of touch that you're really wanting. Like, do you want me to do one of these choppy things or do you want the kneading or what? And really helping people understand that they can ask for all kinds of things within that ask. It's really, really, really a beautiful, beautiful process. I wanted to talk to you now for a moment around. Like, where do you see the wheel evolving? Let's say if we're looking in five to ten years from now, where would you like to see someone like myself? I know, you know, a little bit of my interest in the world and what my work is around. Where would you see that I might be able to take this work into the communities that I work with or the communities I might represent? And what are your feelings about that? 

Betty: Hell yeah. 

Roger: Hell yeah. Okay, you all heard that. 

Betty: That's a great question because it developed out of somatic sex education practice and in the context of relationship and between peers and, you know, the personal thing. But the truth is, I hate to say it, I don't really care about your sex life. Like, this is it. Is it a tool that will improve and broaden your sex life? Oh, yeah. And is that all there is to it? Oh, no. And I when people learn with us, I give them permission to take it, add it to what you're doing, develop it, you know, because I don't know where it's going to go. And your work, the work of a number of other of our students who are taking it more directly into liberation context. I just love hearing about that work. And I think it's inherently liberating, because it's teaching you how to notice yourself, notice what you want and say no and all. It's teaching you that you have a choice about what happens to you. And that changes everything. That changes everything. And so it's inherently liberating. And it can also be taken into kind of a more direct approach to personal liberation and social liberation. And I'm very excited about that. And I have no idea how to do that. And so people are doing it. Yeah. 

Roger: So would it be safe to say then that this is sort of your pecan pie moment and you can say take the wheel as you will and bring it out into the world. It's the pecan pie or pecan pie. I know that's controversial, depending on what part of the world you're from. I say pecan myself. So getting into that, like there's a way I want to talk to you about the challenges of with getting into the wheel, getting into the wheel of consent, which and by that I mean, you know, we live in a world where historically consent has been violated. And now is sometimes weaponized. And when people, it's weaponized when people feel uncomfortable with unsettling truths. And so I'm wondering your perspectives on what we, what do you believe we can–

Betty: What do you mean, consent has been weaponized. 

Roger: Meaning– Let's say, for example, things that are happening around book bans, folks that say, I don't want to learn about that or I never agree. I never agreed to learning about that. I never agreed to talking about that. Sometimes some, you know, what I call unsettling truths, unsettling is a term that I use to really talk about, you know, a decolonial unsettling, unsettlers are oftentimes folks whose families settled in the United States as opposed to those of us, you know, those families were here. And so like it's these uncomfortable and these unsettling truths that, you know, when we bring up things like the genocide of the indigenous population or the enslavement of African people. I don't want to hear about that or when we talk about different kinds of bodies different orientations different types of gender presentations. I don't want to hear about that. I don't want to see that. So it's like this way that they're using. They're weaponizing consent to say, I didn't consent to that I didn't consent to hearing about that. So what do you believe we as a society and facilitators of this work can do to move forward these conversations and necessary changes and using the wheel as one of those tools. 

Betty: Yeah. Well first I think that it's not consent that's being weaponized it's the word. 

Roger: Yes, thank you. Thank you. It's the word. 

Betty: Yes, I didn't consent to that. It's just a way of saying I don't want that. I don't want to learn about that. I don't want to deal with that. I don't want to hear about that. And of course, there are going to be people who don't want to hear about things and of course, there's different things that we all don't want to hear about. I mean, I have my things that I don’t wanna hear about, you have your things you don't wanna hear about, you know, so I think, I think what's happening there is the use of the word. Yeah. 

Roger: So it's really important sometimes to to name that to name that word you know sort of like boundaries and limitations sort of like we’re using these words in a way that maybe we’re using it differently. And to sort of recognize that it's, it's not not consent itself that’s weaponized it's it's you know that that the word or, you know, it's almost sometimes like it's like well y'all didn't even know what that word meant, you know, a month ago, and now you're using it in the way that’s actually not correct. So, I think that's you know that's that's the piece of this work–

Betty: And it can also, just, so sorry, it could, I can also, if I don't want to hear about that, I can, I can insert the word consent in the sentence because that makes me sound righteous. And, and I know that that word consent means something to you so I'm going to bring it up and throw it in your. That's, I think that strikes me as the weaponizing.

Roger: That's exactly that's exactly what I meant by that, right that that it's this understanding. So oftentimes we're unable to have the conversation about the realms outside of the wheel of consent, because because folks are unwilling to do so, even folks that may be doing this work, or maybe our facilitators or maybe students of this work. Because we haven't learned as a culture or as a community of people to really have those really unsettling conversations. And sometimes the that's where like knowing your no is really tricky, because it can feel like a no, like I don't want to talk about this and yet, there's a reason why we're why we're here we're sitting here together, not necessarily just you and I though we're here around this idea of liberation of getting to our yes through pleasure through touch through connection. And for some folks it's really hard to even get into that take quadrant to begin with because of all those things that the legacies that they're bringing with them on top of that. And, you know, I did not necessarily expect you to have an answer tonight because I don't have one either. It was just like I wanted to name that as well as a student of this work to say that I get the I get the wheel of consent, it makes a lot of sense to me, it really does. It's probably the clearest intervention, I think, from from as a therapist as a clinician, as a sexologist that I've ever encountered, I just want to name that and say it's really so clear to me. And then there's all of the mystery that also surrounds the wheel that you name in that diagram if folks download–  betty martin.org find that wheel diagram to download, you name those aspects of those realms outside of the wheel. And at some other time, Betty, I would really love to just have another conversation with you around the hope that we might have as a culture as a community as practitioners, how we can bring this work in a much necessary needed way to really begin healing, which is going to take a lot of knowing your no’s so you can get to your yes. 

Betty: Yes, yes, yes, absolutely. Yes, yes, I say yes to that. 

Roger: Oh gosh, you know, we're a week away from some of our lives really just either being celebratory or uprooted or you know, I've really been thinking myself around, regardless of what happens with what, whomever, whatever candidate wins the US election. A lot of the issues that I deeply care about are still going to remain. There will still be a crisis of the unhoused and indigenous people still have threats to their sovereignty, etc. And so you know there's this way of like using want and willing right now that I'm really curious about from your perspective like I might not want to participate at all in what's going on right now in terms of the election. And I'm, I've always voted, and I have already voted. Just so everyone knows, I've already voted. Though there was that part of me that was sitting with this like, I don’t want to do this, I'm willing to do it though. I am willing to vote. And that was something I learned from the wheel. Want versus willing. And I really sat with my willingness to participate in this system as it currently stands at the moment. Deeply, deeply hoping for some kind of change and I just wanted to ask you to speak on want versus willing a little bit maybe in the context of what we're experiencing right now as a nation, but then even the entirety of the world with all the multiple atrocities going on in the world at the moment. 

Betty: Yeah, we need another couple hours. 

Roger: I think so. 

Betty: The want and willing actually it just arose, just of noticing. And I'm sure it's not original I'm sure many people have thought of it, but want refers to something that I want for my own reasons. It might or might not involve anyone else. I want to take a walk, I want a sandwich, I want to nap. I want to put my hand up your shirt. I want to hug you. Might or might not involve anybody else but it's for my own reasons. There might be something that I would not choose for my own reasons, but because you want it I'm perfectly willing to go with what you want. I choose it because you want it and I care about you. And that's what I call willing. I'm not likely to drive to the airport for the fun of it. But if you want a ride, I'm perfectly willing to drive it to the airport. So, or I might not be burning to get my hands on you at the moment but if you want a back rub, I'll be happy to do that for you. So that’s what I'm talking about willing. And it's helpful to know the difference because because it's gonna it's gonna change my answer to what we do. I, you know, if, if, if there's a documentary offered on the history of women race car drivers. I'm not really probably very interested. But if one of them is your daughter, and you want me to see it, oh hell yeah I'll watch that thing. You know, so it's gonna it's going to change my understanding of what it is that that I'm going to do and how I'm going to participate. And yeah, it just seems really helpful to help to check in with myself, wait a minute. Is this something I want, is this something I'm willing to do, and of course there's a range there. It may be a burning desire it may be just a mild preference. And the same thing with willing it may be oh hell yeah that sounds great I'll do that. Or it may be, yeah, I can make that work. Or it might be only for you baby and only this once, you know, so there's a range there. But I found it helpful in checking in with myself about why I'm doing this or why I'm asking for this. Yeah. 

Roger: For folks that are maybe just listening tonight. I want to reference that Betty when when you were referencing, you know, checking with yourself you actually like gestured toward the body right as a way of like using somatic awareness to sort of feel into that. 

Betty: But I wanted to link that to your other question about the bigger picture of society as a whole and I think there are things like you were mentioning voting I don't want to. But I'm willing to, because it's a benefit to the country as a whole, it's a benefit to other people it's a benefit to me in some way. It's not something I'm really happy with, but I'm choosing to do it because I have a reason to do it. And, and it's a benefit in some way. And that I think applies to a lot of things that we do. I don't really prefer to drive on the right side of the road or stop at stop signs, but hell yeah I'm going to do it. Because that's a benefit to me and everybody else. 

Roger: So, Betty, any, any final thoughts or comments that you may want to share?

Betty: Well I want to give credit to Harry Faddis who invented the three minute game, wasn't me. So Harry Faddis who was working with the Body Electric School at the time. 

Roger: Yeah, yeah. Thank you for mentioning that. I meant to bring him up earlier you know I know Harry from like the music world, he used to play my music back in the day. 

Betty: Oh my gosh. 

Roger: Yeah, so like actually I ran into him at a couple of years ago at Easton Mountain actually was at a retreat that Adam Nicholson, who I believe is watching tonight, whattup Adam, and Joe Joe we're facilitating together and Harry was there and he was like Roger Kuhn Wow you're here. It was like, it's so nice to like when folks sort of recognize you in that particular way so thanks for giving Harry a shout out. And again just from my, my heart to yours Betty thank you for not only this invitation tonight to be with you in this way. Thank you for the gift of the wheel of consent. I believe that you have already changed the world because you have changed the way that so many of us think about how we can offer how we can heal how we can move closer to liberation and you are just one step in that long journey for many of us so thank you for everything that you have contributed so much, and I look forward to many many more conversations with you over the rest of our lifetime together. So, Dr. Betty Martin, Betty Martin, what a joy. Thank you so much for being here with us tonight. Thank you to everybody across the world who may have tuned in tonight. Thank you to everybody that is part of the wheel of consent community for bringing this work out into the world again and again. Any final words to close us out, Betty? 

Betty: Well, it's great to see you again and thank you for having me. 

Roger: You are so welcome. Alright folks, thank you so much. I appreciate your time. I hope everybody stays safe and remember love is liberation. Peace. 

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Thank you for listening to the CIIS Public Programs Podcast. Our talks and conversations are presented live in San Francisco, California. We recognize that our university’s building in San Francisco occupies traditional, unceded Ramaytush Ohlone lands. If you are interested in learning more about native lands, languages, and territories, the website native-land.ca is a helpful resource for you to learn about and acknowledge the Indigenous land where you live.

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