The Consent Blueprint
A Resource for Professionals
Originally developed for myself as a way to capture all the skills and frameworks I learned through my education experiences. The blueprint captures the 41 skills and 13 tools that helped me facilitate identifying my wants, boundaries, and limits, advocating for them, and executing on negotiation. This is a digital-only PDF download.
The flowchart at the heart of the Blueprint mapping out what skills and tools are used in which phase of communication
What is the Consent Blueprint?
The Consent Blueprint is a 121-page resource that details the tools and consent negotiation process I developed for myself.
The Consent Blueprint centers around a flowchart that visually shows all the skills and tools that go into internally identifying your wants, boundaries, and limits, externally advocating for them, negotiating, and executing on your plan or addressing harm if something comes up. The key is that this provides clarity on where you are in the communication process and what skills you should be reaching for. By developing drills to practice these skills and tools, I’ve created a way to systematically and repeatably practice essential skills like how to say no, how do identify if you are wanting willing or tolerating, how to apologize in a meaningful way, all in low stakes controlled environments so that you have the experience and confidence to execute those skills when it’s high stakes and really matters. The crux of the Blueprint is that it provides a structure and framework to help navigate a nebulous and overwhelming set of skills and allows you to identify where you are weak and where you are strong, then provides drills to practice your weaknesses and gain trust in yourself and your skills.
An example of the skill page for hearing no.
Who is it for?
This work is first and foremost for me. I designed it to organize all my thoughts and catalog the skills I wanted to practice and the tools I had learned.
Past an audience of one, this material is intended for professionals and educators to integrate these tools and drills into their work with clients. This is meant to be a supplement, not a replacement. Think of it like having a list of ready-made tools and drills in your back pocket to use with clients, or having some scaffolding and frameworks to explain hard-to-grasp concepts or skills to your clients.
If you are a layperson trying to use this blueprint without expert guidance, I invite you to treat this as a set of tools to increase the chances of you being able to say yes to what you want, no to what you don’t, and be able to advocate for your wants, boundaries, and limits. At the same time, the skills and concepts in this document are relatively high-level and required years for me to really learn and embody. The best way to learn them and use this resource is under the guidance of a qualified teacher or coach. They can provide the context and foundation needed to engage with the material at a deeper level.
These tools try to reduce the risk of a consent violation or incident occurring, and give some tools to be accountable if harm does occur. All that being said, this material is advanced, and you’ll likely get the most out of it if you use it in conjunction with a professional educator or coach. Reading this document does not make you an expert in consent or immune to causing harm or being accused of causing harm. This material is also not comprehensive, authoritative, or the final word. Consent is messy, and this is how I tried to bring structure to it. This is not a prescriptive ten-step guide to mistake-free negotiations that will result in 100% perfect consent. That doesn’t exist. It’s one person’s framework, personal structure, and reflections. I have no desire or intention of being a consent expert or educator. Competence does not equate to expertise.
An excerpt from the introduction defining consent.
Who am I, and why did I make the Blueprint?
I’m an autistic queer who loves swords and flowcharts! I’m good at organizing information, and I’m passionate about education.
I have enough fitness certifications to sink a small boat, and I’m a volunteer EMT in my free time. I’m not good at archery, but I really enjoy doing it, especially traditional recurve archery. I’m also learning how to draw and it’s hard but so rewarding.
I created this resource because I wanted to improve my consent skills and practices.
It was a byproduct of my work with coaches and mentors like Midori, Marcia Baczynski, Sunny Megatron, Consent Academy, and William Winters from the Bonobo Network. This work was part of an accountability process following a January 2023 report of a communication incident in which I failed to describe my training and experience regarding suspension adequately. This document encapsulates the lessons I have learned and the tools I developed to empower me to both advocate for my wants, boundaries, and limits and enable me to take responsibility when harm occurs. I wanted to make it available to professionals who wanted more tools to use with their clients, especially for nurodivergent clients who might struggle with the greyness and nebulous nature of consent and communication. I also wanted to make available and share some of my learnings to those who don’t have the luxury of years of time and thousands of dollars to invest in private consent coaching.
The Ladder of Integrity, a framework I developed while writing the Blueprint!
Gallery
Kind words & encouragement from my mentors and community
“Taken in whole or in parts, this Blueprint is hugely helpful in better understanding the complexity and nuance that goes into excellent agreement-making. While it appears technically dense, this is a practical, accessible resource. You can even turn this into a party game. Consider yourselves challenged.”
- Midori, international sex educator and Japanese American artist
“This Blueprint is fabulous. As someone else who thinks in flowcharts, I'm thrilled! And besides, it's beautiful and useful!”
- Betty Martin, international Somatic Sex Educator and Surrogate Partner Therapist. Developer of The Wheel of Consent
“The Consent Blueprint is an excellent resource for anyone looking to level up their communication know-how. This consolidated, customizable bundle is both concise and deep enough to fit a variety of students’ needs.”
-Sunny Megatron, Neurodivergent Clinical Sexologist and media personality
Frequently Asked Questions
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Absolutely! You have the option to buy the blueprint in bulk, where the more you buy the less expensive each copy is, and you can give your students or clients a code to download their copy.
Just fill out this form to order bulk copies
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Once you buy this resource, you will be able to download a PDF document. This is a digital-only product. Once you have it, it’s yours!
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Yes! By purchasing the Blueprint, you also receive a non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable, perpetual license to use the materials. That means you may use or adapt content from the Blueprint in your own personal and professional work, including commercial applications like workshops, coaching, programs, presentations, books - provided you include an attribution adjacent to the use. See the legal and copyright section on page 121 of the Blueprint for more information.
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Great question! See the Community Resources section for a list of people that I worked with and reach out to them. The three coaches I worked most closely with were Midori, Marcia Baczynski, and Sunny Megatron. Any one of them would be a fantastic place to start. I also had individual coaching with Consent Academy and Bonobo Network about specialized topics like codes of conduct and how to structure disclosures centered in authenticity.
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Great question!
After I finished the first draft, I worked with an editor who specializes in queer non-fiction, and we completed two rounds of edits. Then I worked with a team of queer, kinky, and neurodivergent individuals to play-test each drill and ensure the instructions were easy to follow and that the drills accomplished what I intended. They also gave general feedback on the Blueprint’s layout, flow, and usability.
At the same time, I worked with community experts like Marcia Baczynski, Midori, and Sunny Megatron to complete a round of peer review. I also had Betty Martin and Consent Academy review their relevant sections for accuracy. Finally, for individuals whose copyright permission I was securing, I submitted their sections to them for review to ensure accuracy and correct attribution.
Finally, after a third round of edits to incorporate all this feedback, I worked with a neurodivergent, kinky proofreader to complete a final pass to ensure the Blueprint was ready for publishing.