ABSTRACT
Educating people about consent is more difficult than it seems. Theory-driven education is insufficient, because consent entails one-on-one interactions, emotions, and deeply ingrained scripts about sexuality and consent negotiation that are fraught with patriarchal norms. In this chapter, I analyse one tool that has been developed to educate individuals about consent in an embodied way, through exploring consensual and intimate touch through cuddling: the opening circle in Cuddle Parties. Using an ethnographic approach through participant observation, I describe some of the scripts of intimacy and consent that are reflexively discussed and challenged during the workshop preceding Cuddle Parties, and how some small exercises enable participants in such workshops to work on asserting their boundaries, better accepting and responding to rejection, expressing their desires, and avoiding non-consented escalation of intimacy into sexual encounters. To examine these questions, I discuss in depth some of the exercises that happen at the onset of Cuddle Parties, as well as the rules made explicit during these events to prefigure new scripts for verbal and enthusiastic consent.
