4 Ways to Explore Sexual Consent & Care.
Image description: Over a pink background you can see a hand with two wet fingers touching the center of a yellow flower. Photo by Malvestida on Unsplash.
When I signed up to do a year long Sex, Love and Relationships training there were a lot of things I was excited about and looking forward to. I didn’t know that I’d be doing 15+ hours of practices (often self pleasure practices) a week or that I would learn how to honor my body’s somatic cues around sex. While I wish that everyone grew up in a sex positive society where we received sex education that was pleasure focused, queer and disabled focused-unfortunately that isn’t the case. Some of us either didn’t receive sex education at all or it didn’t include valuable information such as queer sex, how to connect to your sexuality or sexual consent and care. While sexual consent with others is so important, I also know that sometimes knowing how to identify our sexual boundaries and needs can feel really tricky-especially for folks who might lean towards fawning responses. Which is why I wanted to share four ways you can connect to your sexuality and explore your sexual yes’s, no’s and maybes.
Please note: if the topics of self pleasure and sex are topics that don’t feel supportive for you (either right now or in general), please skip this article. If you are new to this work and have experienced trauma: please do this work with a therapist or coach.
What is Sexual Self Consent and Care anyway?
When I talk about sexual self consent I’m referring to:
Identifying your own body cues and knowing when you’re a yes, no or a maybe to a sexual experience.
Identifying the difference between being turned on and feeling like a no to a sexual activity. Example: I might be physically turned on but I’m not interested in having sex.
The ability to honor your sexual yes’s and no’s-first with yourself and then with others.
Knowing your sexual likes, dislikes and maybes.
I view sexual care as all the ways you care for your sexuality. That could include:
Honoring your sexual boundaries.
Communicating your sexual needs and boundaries with others.
Having a supportive and nourishing relationship with your own sexuality-as well as your sexual connections with others (if you engage sexually with others.)
Tending to your sexual health by talking to partners about safer sex, getting tested for STIs and any ways you care for your sexual health.
If reading the above lists makes you think “Whoah! I don’t know how to do those things!” can you honor that it likely makes a lot of sense! It’s also important to recognize that our relationship to our sexuality can be impacted by trauma, our previous sexual experiences, as well as sexual shaming messages in our society.
Let’s explore 4 doable ways you can connect to your own sexual self consent.
1.) Identify your sexual yums and yucks.
It felt life changing to me the first time I learned about sexual yums and yucks from Emily Beatrix in her course Journey to Pleasure. For many of us we might have been asked “what do you sexually like and disliked?” but I’ve found that the language of “sexual yums” and “sexual yucks” feels more clear. It might be supportive to think about a food that feels really yummy, as well as a food that feels yucky. What body cues or sensations do you notice in your body? We can do a similar thing with sexual yums and yucks. You might ask yourself:
What feels sexually yummy to you?
What feels sexually yucky to you?
What are some things that you’re not sure if they’re sexually yummy or yucky? Ex: Maybe there’s something you’ve always been curious but don’t know if it’s truly a yum or yuck until you try it.
You could write down sexual activities, positions or even gender(s) that you don’t enjoy having sex with. While most of us have heard the phrase “don’t yuck someone else’s yum”, can you give yourself permission to fully own your sexual yums and yucks? Remember, that it’s truly okay to have a sexual yuck. While we don’t want to judge others for their sexual desires and experiences, it’s okay to very clearly know what you’re not sexually interested in.
If it feels challenging to name things that feel like a sexual yum or yuck to you, perhaps do some journaling (or talking out loud) to the prompt: “If I had full permission to own my sexual yums and yucks and I didn’t have to worry about anyone’s reactions, my sexual yums and yucks would be….” It can sometimes also be helpful to do a “Pleasure Audio” or to shift through past sexual experiences, things you’ve read about or seen and to check in on your sexual yums, yucks and maybes.
2.) Somatic Sexual Consent.
Image description: Over a cream colored background there are three photos: the first one is a woman hugging herself, the second is holding a red flower in front of her pelvis and the third are two hands circling a pink flower.) The title reads “Three Steps to Sexual Somatic Consent” and under the words “Step one, Step two, Step three” there are instructions on how to check in with your body and your sexual yes’s, no’s and maybes.
Making somatic sexual consent a key part of your self pleasure and partnered sex can be so important-and incredibly healing if you have a history of overriding your own boundaries. Somatic sexual consent is about tuning into your body before a specific sexual activity and checking to see if you’re a yes, no or maybe-and then honoring whatever your body is telling you. It might be supportive to experiment with honoring your somatic cues first with solo play and then introducing it with partnered sex.
For somatic sexual consent you can identify both energetic body cues and physical body cues. If you’re a person with a vagina, one way you might do this practice is by bringing a finger or toy to your vagina opening and ask yourself: “Am I a yes, no or a maybe to penetration?” Then pause and notice any physical and energetic cues from your body. Physical cues might be a sucking motion from your vagina and energetic cues might be a sense that yes, you’re wanting penetration or that no you don’t want penetration right now. Note: if you don’t have a vagina or penetration isn’t something you practice, you can still do this practice by bringing a hand, toy or even specific sexual intentions to your genitals.
The most important part about this practice is to honor your body’s yes’s, no’s and maybes. This is so important especially if you’ve experienced overriding your sexual limits, having your boundaries crossed or if your “no” has previously been invalidated. Perhaps ask yourself: “Can I truly honor my sexual yes’s, no’s and maybe?” For the purpose of this exercise:
“Yes” means “Yes, I want to do this” or “my body consents to do this and I’m ready to do this.”
“No” means that regardless of the reason “I’m not ready for this” or “I don’t want to do this right now or ever.”
“Maybe” means that I can explore what conditions would I need to be a yes. Perhaps that’s more time, safety conditions or modifying the practice in some way.
I see practice somatic sexual consent as a way we can become more attuned to our sexual needs and boundaries. If you have a tendency towards people pleasing and/or masking during sex, you might approach this practice with a sense of curiosity and slowness. What is it like to really check in with yourself before self pleasure or sex? What does it feel like to honor both your sexual yes’s and no’s?
3.) Have a connected relationship to your sexuality and pleasure.
Image description: Over a red background there is a title in white text that reads: “Connect to your Sexuality Bingo” and 9 white squares with red text. 8 of the white squares has suggestions on how to connect to your sexuality and the center square has a red heart. The website www.tiffany-landry.com is written in white text at the bottom of the graphic.
One of the most important things we can do for our sexuality is to have a connected and supportive relationship with our sexuality and pleasure-whatever that means for us. Just like you might have a consistent movement practice or steady routines that are supportive for you, it’s also important to tend to your sexuality in consistent and doable ways. Whether you have sex with other people or not, can you tend to your sexuality and pleasure in consistent doable ways. That could look like:
Making time to self pleasure or masturbate.
Investing in a sexuality course or book.
Reading (or writing!) erotica.
Connecting to your sensuality-perhaps that’s taking a bath, dancing, self massaging yourself with oil or whatever gives you pleasure.
Rewriting a new sexuality story. So many of us have been taught stories rooted in shame about sexuality, pleasure and our bodies. It can be supportive to identify the stories that aren’t serving us and creating a new sex positive story.
Exploring unmasking in the areas of sexuality and pleasure.
4.) Sexual consent and care with others.
Image description: Over a pink background there is a cream colored text box with the following text: “How can we show up with trauma informed care and consent with others? In my opinion it’s a formula of: being trauma informed + sex positive + learning how to communicate about sex.” At the bottom of the graphic is the website www.tiffany-landry.com and in the upper left corner there is a drawing of a flower.
I believe that the majority of us want to have sexual experiences with others where we show up with deep care, trauma informed goodness and honor each other’s boundaries. I also know that unfortunately a lot of us simply haven’t received good sex education and knowledge on things like consent, STI education and how to be trauma informed. So if some of this feels new or you’ve been imperfect at it in the past, can you perhaps extend some grace towards yourself? It makes a lot of sense to have made mistakes when you grow up with a less than ideal sex education and live in a society with problematic views on sexuality and pleasure. Which is why getting to know your own sexual yes’s and no’s is a great foundation to being able to share your sexual needs and boundaries with others.
How can we show up with trauma informed care and consent with others? In my opinion it’s a formula of: being trauma informed + sex positive + learning how to communicate about sex.
Trauma informed means acknowledging that you are going to date, have sex with and be in relationships with people who have experienced trauma. We can be show up with trauma informed care by doing things like:
Prioritizing our and the other person’s consent.
Offering options.
Checking in with whoever we are interacting with. You might check in on things like pacing, environment, sex, relationship style, communication preferences and more!
Attuning to our date/partner.
Giving full permission for our partner to say no, at any moment.
Checking in with yourself, your boundaries and when your nervous system gets activated.
Sex positive is about being open about sex and knowing that everyone has different sexual needs, desires and boundaries. You can be sex positive in a conversation about group sex even if that’s a personal sexual yuck for you. We can be sex positive and still honor our own unique boundaries and needs. Some other ways we can be sex positive are:
Being open and affirming of people’s sexual desires, sexual orientation, gender identity, relationship structure and more.
Tending to your sexual health: such as getting tested for STIs and communicating your STI status with people you sleep with. Part of being sex positive is also unpacking STI stigma and being mindful of language. So instead of saying “I’m clean” (which implies that people who test positive for STIs are “dirty”) you might simply say “I was tested for (insert names of tests) and here are my results” or “I tested negative for all of my recent STI tests.”
Making space to unpack sex shaming beliefs that you may have internalized. It makes sense to have received messages that are rooted in sex shaming and it’s supportive to have a safe space to unpack these messages.
Learning to communicate about sex is so important! I always say that the key to have the sex that you want to be having is to learn how to communicate about sex! Sometimes communicate about sex can feel challenging due to a variety of reasons. If that’s your experience then please remember that it likely makes so much sense. Some ways we can communicate about sex are:
Talking about our STI testing results, our sexual likes/dislikes and boundaries before we have sex with a new partner.
Communicating about your safe(r) sex needs and desires. Will you use barrier methods? Are you on a type of birth control? If you are positive for a STI it can be important to talk about ways you might prevent transmission.
Share what type of language you like during sex, any relevant trauma history and any care you need before, during and after sex for it to feel safe and accessible. What language do you like people to use to talk about specific body parts? Do you have any sensory needs? If you’ve experienced trauma it can be supportive to share with your partner(s) specific things you need for sex to feel safe and be trauma informed.
Sexual consent practices are healing.
When I think about getting to know our sexual yes’s and no’s, our likes and dislikes-I think about how healing it is to embody our sexuality in a way that feels good to us. Not performing what we think we should do or like, people pleasing a partner or chasing a “sexual goal” but embodying our sexuality in a way that feels good to you. I also know that there are so many pathways to coming home to our sexuality. What would it look like to honor your own unique healing timeline and approach any sexual healing with a lot of gentleness and care. Perhaps that’s working with a therapist or coach, tracking your nervous system or checking in with your body.
When I first started my Sex, Love and Relationship Certification I remember feeling so excited about really cool things like different types of orgasms, orgasmic breathwork and sacred sexuality teachings. While I still think those things are pretty awesome, what fascinates me now are the ways in which we can deeply connect to and honor our body. Sexual consent is sexy and healing. It’s a way we can tell ourselves (and other people we care about):
I matter so much.
I care about my sexual wellness and I care about yours too.
My no is so welcome and valid. So is yours.
As you begin to explore your own relationship with your pleasure, consent and sexuality-I hope you take small doable steps, get curious about both your yes’s and no’s and make time to celebrate each yourself each time you honor your sexual boundaries.
Resources consulted:
I learned about the concept of sexual yums and yucks from Emily Beatrix in her incredible course The Journey to Pleasure.
The teachings of sexual somatic consent I learned from my teacher Layla Martin in her year long VITA™ Sex, Love and Relationship Coaching Certification.
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Thank you for reading!
I hope this blog post was supportive.
The information contained in this blog post is for general educational and informational purposes only and should not be construed as medical or mental health advice. The information provided is not a substitute for advice from a qualified professional who is aware of the facts and circumstances of your individual situation. We expressly recommend that you seek advice from a professional familiar with your specific situation.
Your healing matters.
I hope this blog post was helpful in your own healing journey.
If you’re seeking support and healing, I’d love to support you in my 6 month program Coming Home: a 6 month somatic coaching program. In this program I support clients with ReBloom Coaching (a somatic archetypal trauma resolution method) and steady support. The program includes:
An intensive intake session & personalized “Coaching Map” document to identify your goals and developmental objectives that we’ll work on in our program together.
Two (90 minute) sessions and one 30 minute Co-Regulation Session a month.
Optional practices and resources to help support you in implementing the work we do in our session.
You can find out more about Coming Home here.
Tiffany Landry is a somatic coach who works with queer and autistic clients. She works with clients in her program The Autistic Mentorship and in Coming Home. Tiffany also writes a free newsletter on Substack called The Queer Autistic Newsletter.