Yes, No, Maybe, Baby

Is Ria ready for their next spank??

Recently I read a post where there seemed to be a misunderstanding about how beautiful and empowering ‘maybe’ can be in a consent and boundaries exercise I taught. The implication was maybe it wasn’t clear how wonderful ‘maybe’ can be in our wider sex and kink life. Maybe I didn’t explain it well or maybe there was a misunderstanding somewhere.

It was sad to see the beauty of this embodiment exercise misunderstood and/or misrepresented so I thought I’d share a bit about what “maybe” means and how it can be such a great gift.

For anyone who’s been to my workshops or done my courses, you probably know how much I LOVE the use of ‘maybe’ in scenes!

It’s such a juicy space of possibility! Meeting someone’s eyes or breath and physicality and feeling a ‘maybe’ in your body allows a lot of room for potential explorations within the self as well as within any possible interactions.

In some workshops we can play it safe with the idea that “If it’s not a fuck yes, it’s a hell no”. I understand the certainty in this binary is really useful for a lot of people. It’s especially safe for people not socialised to have good boundaries. As this is most of us when we begin our erotic journey, the absolute binary of yes/no is absolutely necessary. If we are working in this “yes/no” binary space then of course every ‘yes’ or ‘no’ is to be honoured, and celebrated.

But what if we legitimately don’t know if we want to receive something? Don’t we deserve the time to feel into our body and find an answer? What if it takes a few breaths to make up our mind? What if our first answer is a gut response and after we feel into it a bit more, a different answer would come?

We really can get a lot from allowing the use of ‘maybe’ and understanding the power it has to transform our intimacy.

So… maybe… What do you feel when you say it out loud? Try it now… How does it feel to bring ‘maybe’ into your body?

Hmmmm… Maybe!

When you’re not sure yet on whether you’re a full ‘yes’ or a full ‘no’ to something, our good friend ‘maybe’ can come into play.

‘Maybe’ is a beautifully spacious place that gives both me and my partner(s) a moment to pause. To feel. To sense. To listen to our bodies and give it time to get a clear response. There is no rushing.

I teach that ‘maybe’ is a place where we give ourselves the gift of time.

If we rush in the space of maybe, we could end up crossing our own boundaries or even saying ‘yes’ to something we don’t want to do.

Having an awareness of ‘maybe’ within yourself and with your partners allows you time to figure out what you want and don’t want.

I love ‘maybe’. I welcome ‘maybe’!

In a kink setting we would often have a top and a bottom, called here an active person and a receptive person. If the receptive person gives a maybe, the greatest gift from the active person is to stay present with it and give some time to the receptive person to feel into their body and decide. The active person mustn’t move forward as they haven’t had a “yes”. But if they move backwards assuming a ‘no’ then they can be depriving the receptive person from having the time they need to make an empowered and embodied decision.

That moment of poise can be so juicy, emotional and insightful as various emotions move through our bodies. There’s no such thing as trying to convince someone to move from a ‘maybe’ to a ‘yes’ in a consent exercise. That doesn’t make any sense at all. The best thing for the active person to do is to be present, hold space, poised and let the receptive partner decide what their boundary is. It can be a beautiful gift ❤

Have you been to one of my workshops where we explored ‘maybe’? How was it for you? How do you feel about using ‘maybe’ when being intimate with someone?