The Art of Receiving and Giving

Why would most people endure unwanted or unsatisfying touch, rather than speak up for their own boundaries and desires? ItâÇÖs a question with a myriad of answers - and one that Dr. Betty Martin has explored in her 40+ years as a hands-on practitioner, first as a chiropractor and later as a Somatic Sex Educator, Certified Surrogate Partner and Sacred Intimate. In her client sessions, she noticed a pattern wherein many clients would 'allow' or go along with discomfort or unease rather than speak up for what they wanted or didnâÇÖt want.áBetty discovered there was a major component missing for people -- the confidence that we have a choice about what is happening to us.

In her framework, 'The Wheel of Consent«' Betty traces the fundamental roots of consent back to our childhood conditioning.áAs children, we are taught that to be 'good' we must ignore our bodyâÇÖs discomfort and be compliant: to finish our food even if weâÇÖre full, to go to bed - even if weâÇÖre not tired, to let relatives hug and kiss us even if we donâÇÖt want to.áWe learn that our feelings donâÇÖt matter more than what is happening, and that we donâÇÖt have a choice but to go along, whether or not we want it.

As adults, this conditioning remains with us until we have an opportunity to unlearn it, which is why consent violations are often only called out after the violation has occurred - because we have not been taught or empowered to notice our boundaries, much less value or express our internal signals as the unwanted action is happening.

In this book, Betty guides the reader through the Wheel of Consent framework, and shares practices to help us recover the ability to notice what we want and set clear boundaries. While the practices are based on exchanges of touch, they can also be learned without touch.áIn these practices, we discover that the Art of Giving includes knowing our own limits so we can be more generous within those limits, and not give beyond our capacity - a common problem which creates feelings of resentment or martyrdom.áWe also discover that the Art of Receiving invites us to notice and ask for what we really want, and not just what we think we are supposed to want. This knowledge, and its embodied practice, is foundational for creating clear agreements and bringing more satisfaction into relationships.

While much of consent education focuses on noticing what we donâÇÖt want, or prevention of violation, Betty has developed a 'pleasure-forward' approach to teaching consent.áBy first accessing and awakening (sometimes re-awakening) our bodiesâÇÖ relationship to pleasure and what we want, we can practice noticing and verbalizing what we donâÇÖt want.áSuch an approach provides a more holistic frame in which to unlearn the childhood conditioning that taught us to be silent and compliant, and in which individuals can learn to ask for what they want and state what they donâÇÖt, in a more empowered way.

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