Do you facilitate workshops in a conference, corporate or festival setting? See these consent tips below.
As a big fan of emotional growth, new experiences, and connecting with others, I love workshops.
Over the years I have attended hundreds of fun workshops, from somatic experiencing to finding your power animal, in a myriad of settings, from hotel conference rooms to giant festivals.
One issue that I find many facilitators have trouble with is consent. While consent should be one of the highest priorities for anyone guiding participants to explore their edges, few leaders address it beyond, “you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”
Here’s three big tips on bringing consent culture into your workshop:
1. Know that “at choice,” while important, is not enough.
Consent is a clear agreement; consent is also iterative. While someone may agree to something initially, as time goes by they might begin to feel uncomfortable and want to step out.
Most facilitators recognize this and will let participants know that they are “at-choice.” This is important, however simply saying participants are “at-choice” is not enough, because someone might feel more uncomfortable ending the activity than they feel in the activity itself.
There are many reasons why it’s hard to simply leave a workshop or end an activity. Maybe someone does not want to offend their partner by leaving, maybe they do not want to ostracize themselves from the group, or maybe they feel a lot of peer pressure to continue on.
Fortunately, there are many ways to make it easier for people to not participate without feeling left out. These will depend on the type of workshop you are doing.
You could a worksheet or paper people can read or fill out, or offer the option for people to do the activity on their own. Maybe it is a good time to take a bathroom break and those that wish to participate can can come back.
2. Tell people what you are going to do before you do it
If a person is consenting to an activity, it will help to know what exactly they are consenting to.
While people know what to expect in a yoga class, it is hard for people to know what they will be doing in classes entitled “Tantric Intimacy,” “Healing your Heart,” or “Shamanic Journeying.”
I remember taking a workshop where every step of the way, I got more and more uncomfortable. The presenter started out like this,
“Ok everyone, lets start by standing up. Now start walking around the room looking at your feet. Now look up and make eye contact with people as you pass by them. Now stop in front of someone and maintain eye contact. Now imagine yourself falling in love with this person, and put your hand on their heart and breath together.”
If I had known beforehand that I would be breathing together with a stranger, I most certainly would have left.
Instead, I felt tricked. The presenters made us do incrementally more intimate activities without ever telling us how far we would be going or when we would be stopping.
There’s consent, and then there’s informed consent. Many presenters completely skip the latter because they do not want to “spoil the surprise” or think people may leave too early.
But to practice consent, participants should have a clear idea of what they will be doing. If, for example, your workshop involves “touch,” will you be touching each others arms, face, or genitals?
These are important distinctions that should be communicated ahead of time. It also helps if this is communicated in the description of the workshop itself.
The point is whether you are having people share questions or massage each other’s genitals, it helps to explain what you are going to do, before you do it.
3. Understand the spectrum of consent
What I mean by “spectrum of consent” is that there are some activities people are more comfortable with than others.
Anybody will listen to somebody onstage. Filling out a piece of paper or writing something on a notecard? Easy.
But when you get people to share information with each other, to get up and walk around, to feel a certain way or think a certain thing, or complete sentence prompts with each other, or start to touch (or even smell!) each other, then it is is much more likely someone may not want to participate. Also, there’s activities we are more open to doing with a friend than a stranger.
The best way to work through this is to both know your audience and don’t make assumptions.
Give people the option to stay with the person they came with if they want, while recognizing some couples might be attending specifically to meet other people.
See and maybe even ask what people are open to. Check in with people or ask individuals afterwards if there is anything you could change or improve.
4. Bring consent into all areas of your life
Together, we can create a culture of consent not only by ensuring it in our workshops and trainings, but by bringing it into all the work that we do.
What about you? Have you ever had a facilitator do a really good or particularly bad job with consent?
