I read the wheel of consent and wrote a cliffnotes version 4 u

Are you inside the wheel? ORIGINALLY POSTED ON may 13th 2024

Dear soft heart,

I just finally read the art of receiving and giving: the wheel of consent by Betty Martin.

It was recommended to me years ago, but it’s one of those books where you won’t get to it until it’s the right time to get to it, you know?

Anyway, I read it, and it affirmed a lot of ways I already live, and also, it just gave me a lot more tools. I really love conversations about consent, so I felt called to share some of my findings from reading this book with you to start a discussion.

Betty Martin breaks it down for us and is like listen, there is a circle, and that circle is the wheel, and there are 4 quadrants in the wheel, and when you’re inside the wheel, you are dealing with consent, and when you’re outside of the wheel, you aren’t anymore.

The 4 quadrants go like this: serving// accepting/ taking// allowing.

The serving and allowing quadrants represent the giving half of the wheel and the accepting and taking quadrants represent the receiving half of the wheel. When you are serving, you are giving something through your action and when you allow, you are giving access to something which is also giving. When you are accepting you are receiving the gift of someone else’s action, and when you are taking, you are receiving the gift of having access to something.

When you are in the giving half of the wheel, in either the serving quadrant or allowing quadrant, you are setting two things up. One, your limits, and two your own needs aside for another’s needs, wants, preferences and even desires.

I love how this is the most important thing about serving others, you set your limits, and if someone does not respect those limits of you as the giver, that’s a THEM problem. I think a lot of us who have not had our limits respected when we are giving, or did not even know our own limits, can swing the other way and stop wanting to serve or allow because of this. Of course. It’s really fucking annoying when someone doesn’t know when to stop taking, or extremely traumatic, full stop, when they do not stop when they are asked to. B Martin refers to this as the shadow of the taking quadrant. It leads to horrible things such as systemic oppression and of course, ultimately, this is where rape culture lives.

There is some sort of relaxation that settles into me when I realize that I can serve or allow, and fully put myself aside for someone else’s needs, wants, preferences and desires, when I actually set my limits and know my limits. I feel much more at ease in multiple contexts when I realize that I have massive agency as a giver in both serving and allowing.

I think this is why some people in gay spaces say bottoms are the ones who have all the power, not the tops. Now, if you read my piece I am not a top or a bottom last summer, you’ll know I don’t love the top or bottom discourse in entirety because of the implications of dominance and submission from a patriarchal lens- which means huge power dynamics of unfairness can ensue. However, I really see this is what people mean that “bottoms have all the power”, because if this is done right, consent I mean, bottoms (the assumed server/allower) do actually have a lot of power because they get to set the limits.

Now, of course, consent goes far beyond sexual settings. And I would argue that consent can be so messed up in sexual settings because it’s also largely mishandled outside of such settings. So, I would implore myself to see how I am doing with consent and with each quadrant with all sorts of things, not just in the sexual space between my lover and I.

Which brings us to the receiving half of the wheel, where we have the accepting and taking quadrants that are about their own two things: One, receiving someone else putting their own needs, wants, desires and preferences aside for yours and, two, respecting their limits.

We see that consent only works as a together thing. Because it immediately gets broken if the receiver does not respect the limits of the giver. And it immediately gets broken if the giver is giving for their own needs and wants and desires and preferences to be met, and not the receiver’s. We need each other for consent, how beautiful. We need two people doing the two things they have to do depending on what role they are in and where they find themselves on the wheel at any given time.

You need access to all four quadrants to experience each one

Betty says, you can’t do the serving/ allowing, if you’re not able to do the accepting/ taking. Basically, you can’t give if you can’t receive. I am sure many of us would argue that, especially if you feel like all you do is serve or allow. You may be like what the fuck, no I do that so well. Rest assured, B has taught about this argument in advance. She tells us that if we do not know how to truly receive (accept and take), we will try to get our needs met through our serving and our allowing. THUS, we are then, not actually ever in the circle. We aren’t actually serving or allowing, we are trying to receive but pretending that this isn’t just so.

Mind blown. Yes. Duh.

This makes so much sense to me and is part of one of my core things I’ve always taught in classes or shared with people in coaching - your needs do not go away. No matter how much you try to will them to; we are needy creatures. Thus, if we do not actually let another put their needs aside to meet ours every once in a while (and fully receive), we will get creative in trying to meet our needs by meeting everyone else’s needs first. But that isn’t really meeting people’s needs by putting yours aside, is it? That is not really being in the serving role or the allower role, as Betty illuminates so well.

Of course, we can do too much receiving too, the shadow side of this is the entitled nature of so much of our modern world. Taking or accepting without respecting limits, or without being attuned to our giver is not great either. It’s why the planet is suffering so much, and climate catastrophe is on the rise.

So how do we go about this in normal daily life?

Well, I think taking turns and going around the wheel. We must integrate and practice all the quadrants as per Betty’s recommendation.

Betty says questions can set up consent agreements - which I love. I am going to give a few examples I think can illustrate this.

“Will you?” sets up a serve-accept consent dynamic she says.

As in, “will you get my water bottle in the next room?” You are asking for something, and the giver gets to see if they want to agree with that or not.

“I’m busy, in 5 minutes I can,” would be a way to set a limit while saying yes.

“Sure,” would be a way to agree.

Or, “Will you hold me for a while?”

“Yes,” to agree. You could also ask clarifying questions I would assume, like, “What’s the ideal while for you?” “Like for about an hour.” “You got it, I can definitely do that.”

“Yes, I’ve got 15 minutes before I’ve got to finish my project at work,” Yes, with a limit to respect.

“May I?” sets up a taker and allower consent dynamic as per Betty’s work.

As in, “May I touch your back?”

And… “Yes, you may,” a clear yes.

“My back is actually quite sensitive today, any where else that calls to you?” A yes with a limit. “Your arms?” “Yes, you may.”

And this is where Betty says we get the MOST confused; we think when someone wants to touch us, wants to get us gifts, that this is us automatically receiving. No, actually, that is us allowing access to us. I love how Betty’s work de-conflates being done-to with receiving and doing with giving. She says being done-to can also be a way to give (allowing quadrant). And doing can also be a way to receive (taking quadrant).

Receiving (being in the accepting or taking quadrant) requires us to ask for something. “Will you get me flowers, peonies, for my birthday?” is us asking for something thus setting up a potential agreement of receiving and giving, in this case, serving (the person agreeing and getting you flowers) and accepting (you enjoying your gift of them). Another scenario of this, I imagine, could be, “Darling, what do you want for your birthday this year?” (Serving person opening up space for the accepting person to have what they desire) and an answer from the accepting position in which you are asking for something in specific would be, “Oh, thank you for offering. I want flowers – white roses - please.”

If someone wants to give you an experience or give you some kind of gift by putting their needs, wants, desires, preferences aside, and they have an idea for this, Betty calls this an offer, and they could say something like, “Would you like to receive this massage?”. If you say, “Yes, please!” because you actually want that experience, and not just because you are going along with something because you don’t know how not to, then that is receiving, because it’s for you. If someone is giving you an experience to receive something from you, whether that’s attention, access, or praise or connection, and you agree to this experience, then it’s for them. This distinction helped me a lot.

When someone else does something to/ for us and we haven’t requested it, they have requested it, that is actually us allowing (giving and not receiving) if we say yes. This blew my mind in a good way, because I have felt what she described as resentment, when I have ‘received’ something that I never asked for. But I never understood clearly what I felt or why I felt that way - I just knew it felt like serving or allowing when I was meant to be receiving? And that felt frustrating to me. I love that Betty is like, you don’t have to be grateful for the things that are being done to you in allowing. It’s not for you. It’s for them. You are giving them the gift of having access to you or the gift of giving you something and getting your attention, praise, interest etc. about it.

Betty says that the magic question to orient us to where we are on the wheel is, “Who’s it for?” If giving the massage is actually for the other person to touch your body and feel close to you and you say yes, that’s you allowing therefore giving, not accepting hence receiving. If the massage is for you to relax and you’re asking exactly the sort of pressure and rhythm you want, then that’s accepting. I find that super brilliant and accessible as a practice to come back to, “Who’s it for?”. It makes sense that a request, us asking for our needs to be met, and an offer, us giving an opportunity for someone else’s needs to be met, makes it clear who it’s for if everyone is being straight forward. We can also invite people, and that sounds like, “I’d like this. Would you like this too?”

The consent wheel makes us really up our communication game, if nothing else.

To live in proper consent also requires an immense amount of vulnerability. We have to get good at asking for what we need and want. We need to get good at getting no’s and respecting limits and knowing that just ‘cause we want something doesn’t mean that someone wants it too, at the same time, even though that hurts us. We need to get good at attunement and at being with other people and seeing our impact on them and acting accordingly. We need to get skilled at expressing our inner landscape and talking about what is important to us. We need to feel comfortable saying no to people we love sometimes, and it would really benefit us to slow down so we can notice and then respect our own limits and not override them so that we don’t compromise our role as a giver. We have to be able to practice generosity and give our time and space, and our love and we need to deeply unlearn selfishness. We need to give ourselves permission to feel good things and up our tolerance for joy. We need to check our blind spots and our ulterior motives and also do a fair amount of self-growth to be able to flow in and out of these quadrants with ease. We also need to share responsibilities and burdens and practice actual intimacy. Most of all, the thing I have learnt most accurately in this book is that we absolutely need to be in it together, because it’s not possible alone. What a life-changing thing to step into.

Now over to you - what quadrant feels the easiest for you? Which feels the scariest? Which feels the most unmet in your life by others, and which feels the most unmet by you? What do you think about Betty’s teachings? Are they new? If so, what feels like a lightbulb moment? Are they known to you? If so, what’s your favorite part about practicing the wheel of consent?