Hi everyone!
My name is Sarah, and welcome back to Everyday Consent.
A while back I told you a little bit about my experiences at Reid Mihalko’s Sex Geek
Summer Camp.
[I'm actually at Sex Geek Summer Camp, Reid Mihalko's Sex Geek Summer Camp.
Which is a sexual educators' business kind of retreat camp thing] I don’t have a lot
of practice filming for myself, so I didn’t get a lot of usable footage (sorry Jessi!)
and we really only gave you the basics of what it was like.
But while I was there, I had some experiences that I thought were very relevant to this
channel and that I’ve been itching to tell you all about.
[So we've lots of classes about things relevant to sexual educators, and all kinds of relevant
stuff about intersectionality, and we've been doing lots of stuff about consent, which is
awesome!]
So today I’m excited to share one of those with you and tell you about something called
a Cuddle Party.
First, why Cuddle Parties exist, and then some useful insights and exercises I learned
by attending one at Camp.
Now, before this summer, I had never attended a Cuddle Party or known any details about
the official organization.
[And, in like two hours there will be the Cuddle Party, which is this thing that I'm
learning about.]
I had heard of them before, and was familiar with the vague concept.
For those of you who don’t know: a Cuddle Party is a hosted, facilitated event where
people who might be strangers can come and practice giving and receiving non-sexual physical
affection.
Why might that be appealing, you ask?
If a Cuddle Party sounds weird to you, you’re not alone, but there’s a fair bit of research
which suggests that massage and other forms of human touch can have many health benefits.
It appears to reduce blood levels of cortisol and increase levels of oxytocin, which can
result in reduced stress and elevated mood.
These effects have also been linked with improved immune response and overall health.
So, generally speaking, touch seems to be good for us.
And it usually feels good.
So long you’re comfortable in the situation, many forms of touch, such as getting a massage,
hugging a friend, or holding hands with a sweetie can be relaxing, comforting, and just
plain enjoyable.
But at least in the United States, it’s very uncommon for people to touch each other
in non-sexual contexts.
Though they are not inherently sexual acts, things like cuddling and holding hands are
activities that American culture generally assumes adults only do with each other if
they are sexual partners.
And when people do try to be huggy or cuddly with platonic friends or new acquaintances,
it is often assumed that they are flirting and misunderstandings abound.
So finding and navigating touch outside of sexual relationships can be difficult and
confusing, but we also know that it’s good for us, and many of us want more.
What to do?
So enters the Cuddle Party.
Cuddle Party is a non-profit educational organization which trains facilitators to put on events
where adults can “explore communication, boundaries, affection, and non-sexual touch”.
And I got to attend one of these parties while at Camp.
[So I just came from the Cuddle Party.
It was actually pretty great.]
It isn’t all about the cuddling, though.
As the organization promotes, and as my experience confirmed, Cuddle Parties really are a space
for attendees to learn about boundaries and work on communication skills.
After all, it would be foolish to assume that any roomful of people can just jump in to
cuddling with complete strangers without feeling awkward.
Without any coaching, a lot of people might feel pressured into doing something they don’t
want to out of assumed politeness.
So the first 40 minutes of each Party, called the Welcome Circle, are an introduction of
the 11 rules and a collection of exercises to practice different aspects of verbal consent.
This may seem like a lot, but having this workshop style introduction was actually quite
helpful, and I was really impressed with how considerate and thoroughly thought out it
was.
I’ll link to a full Facilitator script in the description below.
I’d also like to share some highlights and some of my favorite parts, as I think they
are great additions and new insights on exercises and concepts we’ve already explored on this
channel.
Once everyone had arrived, the first exercise we did was very similar to one I described
in the Practicing Consent video.
We were paired up, one partner had to ask “May I kiss you?” and the other partner
had to say “No.”
Then the partners switched roles and repeated the exercise.
We did this a couple times and were encouraged to try different ways of asking, such as “I
want you to kiss me, would you like to?”
To every question, we all practiced responding with “No.”
Once we finished this exercise, the facilitator asked “How many of you assumed that when
we said kissing - we meant kissing on the lips?”
A lot of people did, but some people thought it could mean a kiss on the cheek or forehead,
or something even more innocuous, like the hand.
This lead to a brief discussion about assumptions and how it’s important to be specific in
your requests, since someone might feel very differently about a kiss on the lips versus
a kiss on the forehead or the hand.
Especially if they’re expecting one, but get the other.
Next the facilitator asked us, “How many people felt the urge to explain themselves
or make a joke out of saying No?”
I was floored by this question and immediately raised my hand.
I had just been thinking during the exercise how odd it was that, even though it was just
an exercise and my partner knew it was my job to say ‘No,’ I had felt an overwhelming
urge to use humour to soften the blow.
And I wasn’t the only one, almost half of the room raised their hands.
The facilitator went on to explain that this might be due to a fear of disappointing others,
and for me that really rang true.
In my Rejection video a few months ago I talked about how needing to reject someone can lead
to hesitation and fear about potentially causing them pain.
And that’s definitely what I was feeling in this situation too.
It was enlightening to realize that I could still feel that fear even in a fake practice
scenario, where I knew my partner expected me to say no.
You would think there would be no pressure in that case, but somehow even then I was
worried enough about my partner feeling insulted that it was hard to give a plain ‘No.’
To help with this issue, the facilitator went on to assert that ‘No’ can be a complete
sentence, and that it’s important to keep reminding ourselves and others of this.
Later on the facilitator reached rules number five and six: “If you’re a maybe, say
NO.” and “You are encouraged to change your mind.”
We then went on to do an exercise where we practiced changing our minds.
One partner makes a request, say, asking for a hug, and the other partner says “Yes”,
and then says, “Actually, no”.
Or maybe, “That was great, I’m done now.”
This exercise was great because I’ve found it’s often difficult to tell someone when
you’ve changed your mind.
It can feel like you’ve been dishonest with them or you can worry that they’ll get annoyed
with you.
When in reality, your feelings have simply changed and you’re just trying to give them
the most updated information.
One of my other favorite exercises was a variation on the first exercise but with a few twists.
We got into pairs again, with one partner asking and the other partner responding, but
this time we had to come up with a bunch of different requests.
We were encouraged to ask for things regardless of whether they were something we actually
wanted to do or even made sense.
This meant that, at least in my group, we came up with a variety of questions that ranged
from sounding serious to completely absurd.
We’d ask anything from, to “Would you mind giving me a foot rub?”, to “May I
spank your left buttcheek?”
to “Can I stroke your beard?”
or “Will you let me tickle your kneecap?”.
For the first round, the other partner has to say “No” to every request, and for
the next round they have to say “Yes” to every request, but not actually act on
it.
Having the freedom to ask for things we didn’t actually want, and letting it be a bit absurd
and funny, gave us the safety to sneak in things that we do actually want, but are usually
too shy or embarrassed to put into words.
Funnily enough, I didn’t actually do any cuddling at this party.
But that, in and of itself, was also great practice for me.
The facilitator made clear that it was perfectly acceptable to participate even if we said
no to every offer and that we should only say yes if we really wanted to.
That meant that, since I was feeling a little overloaded that day and needed more personal
space than usual, I got to practice taking care of myself and saying no without feeling
excluded or like I wasn’t being a team player.
I was surprised how difficult that was for me, and I found that practice very valuable.
Anyway, that was my Cuddle Party experience.
I think it reinforced and expanded on some concepts we’ve addressed on this channel
before.
And if you’re looking for different ways to practice consent, I think the exercises
I mentioned are great additions to those in the Practicing Consent video.
If you have any interest in attending or hosting a Cuddle Party yourself, check out their website,
which I’ll link to in the description.
Otherwise, let me know down in the comments if you found anything I mentioned today interesting
or surprising.
Did any of my reactions sound like things you’ve thought or felt before?
Let me know down in the comments, or you can also always email me at everydayconsent@gmail.com.
If you liked this video, press that like button, and if you’d like to see more from me, don’t
forget to subscribe.
Thanks everyone.
Happy consenting folks, I’ll see you next week!
[Like once the actual party started, like cuddling part of it, I sort of walked towards
the edge and just sort of sat down and observed.
And, it was interesting because I noticed that I was feeling...
Like cause I had decided to do that and like thankfully like it had been like reinforced
that was okay and so I was like okay with that decision and that and I was just like
"Cool, like this is what I'm gonna do and it's gonna be okay" And so I was happy with
that but like, the main thing that I was fighting was just like the discomfort of like, not
participating.
Not in a like, peer pressure-y way, but in a like, thing that I'm working on way.
And that like, like I mentioned before like, I want to be like this person who is involved
and who is like supportive of it and who's like, you know like social and like totally
cool with everything.
And so like, just sitting there and not participating, or not like...
I mean like I talked to people, whatever, but like intentionally, like, saying no to
everything and like not being involved was really hard.
It was like, and it was interesting, it was nice to practice that, to sort of like have
that moment.
TO like, to work on that skill of just sort of letting myself do that, letting myself
like, be okay with that.
But anyway, so that was really interesting, that was my Cuddle Party experience.]