Rehearsing Consent: A Workshop With Puppets
Join us at the Nonbinarian Bookstore after-hours for a workshop practicing consensual touch using tactile hand puppets.
Designed and facilitated by Isabella, a puppetry artist and Atlanta-based LGBTQ playparty organizer, with collaborative support from Red Rogue Theater, a project of the NYC-DSA.
Workshop starts at 6:30pm. The store will be closed to the public at 7pm to ensure the safety & comfort of workshop attendees.
All skill levels welcome, no performance background required. Puppets provided!
About this workshop:
LESSON: We'll practice giving clear No's and clear Yes's. We'll practice asking for consent for any physical touch, romantic and non-romantic. We'll swap puppets and swap partners, we'll practice resilience from rejection by having opportunities to make new asks in new scenarios.
STRUCTURE: We titrate from puppet-to-puppet touch to puppet-to-person and person-to-puppet. The structured workshop should end by 7:30, followed by decompressing through unstructured puppet play or socializing as humans, (free to approach touch as rehearsed). It's a Saturday night, if you have something to get to by 8pm you can leave early without missing the lesson.
WHO THIS IS FOR: This workshop will be helpful for your dating life or existing relationships in terms of approaching and escalating intimacy. This workshop is not at all geared toward power-dynamic kink relationships, or processing past trauma around consent. There is 1 facilitator, if someone gets triggered it's their own responsibility to self-regulate. The workshop does not stop to address one person's needs. If you're vulnerable to triggers, this isn't the right time for a puppeteered consent rehearsal.
It's not a deep dive into the Wheel of Consent, but that model does play a part.
THE BEST PART (IMO as creator of this workshop) These puppets are stuffed animals, having animal anatomy they touch in different ways than two humans. Rehearsing Consent with puppets differs from most consent workshops in that, instead of practice asking for the kinds of touch we crave from human companionship, (stroking hand, stroking hair, laying head in partner's lap, kissing), or practice declining the kinds of touch we've been asked before, we're removed from those cravings and anticipations because they're not on the menu. You'll have an octopus ask if he can stroke your nose with his velvety tentacles. You'll negotiate with an oyster, whose pearl is too sensitive but you can stroke her shell. Silliness replaces desire in these rehearsals of voicing consent.
Sliding scale tickets made above the suggested minimum goes toward supporting The Nonbinarian Bookstore & Book Bike, a trans+, disabled, & Asian owned volunteer run exclusively queer bookstore, mobile mutual aid initiative, & community space.
Allies welcome & are gently encouraged to donate more if they can as we center TGNC, disabled, & QTBIPOC authors & community members. No one turned away for lack of funds.
Masks required for all events. More accessibility info here.