The Consent Culture We’re Building at Seattle Ecstatica

Mar 18
10 min read

Updated: Mar 23

Consent is a word that gets used a lot in dance spaces. And everyone has different associations with it. Take a moment to just look at the word and notice what comes up for you:

Consent

Maybe you picture a "dance agreements" sheet taped to the wall. Or the consent talk in the opening circle that only half the room seems to be listening to. Maybe you flash to that hippy-dance-bro who lifted you aggressively without asking. Or the person who kept orbiting you all night, no matter how many times you moved away. Or maybe what comes up is a background worry about doing something wrong without realizing it, and then being found out by the consent police.

Consent carries different associations for each of us. We wrote this piece to get us all on the same page about the consent culture we're building at Seattle Ecstatica.

To be honest upfront, we’re trying to do something bigger than just teaching people it’s okay to say "no." Seattle Ecstatica is working to build a consent culture that is trauma-informed, power-aware, and held by the whole community—not just the organizers and people in pink wristbands (HeartTenders).

Getting everyone on board is a big ask. How do we actually do it? Let’s dig in.

Yes and no are just the beginning

Most of us began by learning that consent is about saying "yes" and "no." That’s true, but it’s not the whole picture. Consent starts with the nervous system. When we feel pressured, unsafe, or caught off guard, our nervous system can take over before we have access to words. Sometimes we freeze or fawn and go along with it because saying "no" feels too dangerous. And sometimes we don’t realize something felt wrong until later, when we’re home, and the adrenaline has worn off.

None of this is a personal failure. It's just how bodies and nervous systems work under pressure. So while we'd love it if everyone could calmly and clearly say "yes" or "no" in every moment, we can't build a consent culture on that assumption alone. We have to account for the invisible power dynamics in the room.

Power is in the room, whether we see it or not

Often, conscious dance spaces describe themselves as judgment-free zones where everyone is equally free to express themselves. That’s a beautiful intention. But the power dynamics we inherit from the larger society don't just disappear because we've stepped onto a large wooden floor.

On a daily basis, we are bombarded by messages about what it means to be masculine and feminine. According to our culture, men should be dominant, assertive, strong, competitive, and take what they want. Women are emotional, needy, and should be subservient and take care of others. And genderfluid, nonbinary, and trans folks simply shouldn't exist. This is the harmful and frankly bogus messaging our society hammers into us daily, and it all shows up both subconsciously and consciously on the dance floor.

And that's just gender. Power dynamics show up in gender, race, body size, experience level, social confidence, and community status. Saying "no" is easier when you feel secure, confident, and have friends in the room. It's a lot harder when you're new, when you're a woman who's been socially conditioned to prioritize other people's comfort over your own, when the person asking is well-connected, or when saying no has historically come with social consequences, pressure and coercion, or physical/sexual abuse.

A consent culture that ignores these dynamics ends up primarily protecting the people who have the easiest time saying "no": cisgender white men who have been in the community a while. So what can we do about this?

We must ask more from people who hold more power. If you're experienced or well-known in the community, a man, a white person, non-disabled, or in any kind of leadership role, you carry more responsibility to slow down, check in more often, and pay attention to how your presence lands with others.

Your actions carry more weight, whether you mean them to or not. That’s just the reality of how power works in a room. This can be difficult to accept, and some of us think, "But not me! I don't have more power than others. I'm just like everyone else. We're all equal here." When confronted with previously unacknowledged privilege it’s normal to feel a little defensive at first. It can feel someone's telling you you did something wrong, or like, “Hey, I didn't ask for this privilege!”

But it's not personal to any one human. It is structural to our society. In a patriarchal society, men are socialized to be on top of the hierarchy. In a society built on the values of success, gaining power, and being in the dominant position, people with more social status or success will feel more secure and confident. Power dynamics aren't personal; we're all born into them, and then grow up in them, and then unless we gain awareness, we just pass them on to the next generation. This is why consent is complicated and why it's harder for some people to say "no" than others.

If you hold any privileged identities, the best way you can take care of those with less power is to practice making it easy for others to say no or leave an interaction.

In other words, always give them an easy out. And there's no negative consequence for doing that. In fact, the result is that you'll probably build a lot of trust with those around you.

Safety is a Community Process

It's very difficult for someone to feel safe when they're isolated, cornered, or left out. In fact this is when people are the most vulnerable. And there's a reason why nearly 1/2 women and 1/6 men experience sexual violence—they feel isolated, they either don't report it (due to shame or fear) or if they do, they aren't believed, then the harm gets swept under the rug as if it never happened, and gets repeated. When this happens, on the surface, the community acts like everything's fine, but underneath, whisper networks emerge where people warn each other of "dangerous predators."

We're sharing this because these statistics are real in every community until genuine work is done. This isn't an individual problem; this is a community problem. Until there are trusted systems of support set up and the community at large embodies trauma-informed, power-aware consent practices, harms will simply continue, those harmed will leave the community, and then new people will come in only to see the cycle repeat.

This is why we’re building something different. A culture where people actually look out for each other. If you notice something that doesn’t feel right, say something to a HeartTender, to an organizer, or report the incident on our website. Raising a concern shouldn't feel like you’re snitching on someone, but that you’re supporting the safety of the community.

We will hear and believe the experience of anyone sharing a concern (this doesn't mean we will always take the action they want). And we will do our best to meet those who have caused harm with non-punitive, yet accountable restorative justice.

This is the basis of our consent team and process.

Impact matters, not just intention

Most harm on the dance floor isn’t malicious. It comes from people who are excited, unaware, or unintentionally embodying harmful socialization. Most of the time, we're acting with good intentions.

But if we, with good intentions, touch someone in a way they don't like, our good intentions don't remove the discomfort they experienced. If someone tells you that something you did made them uncomfortable or hurt them, the first job isn’t to defend yourself. It’s to listen. Listening instead of defending is a radical act that requires bravery.

It's hard to do in practice because we all care about being a good person, and fear being called a bad person. But the truth is that you aren't a bad person. When you made someone uncomfortable, it is not you, but your actions that made them uncomfortable. It’s good news because it means you're not under attack and you can do something to repair the mistakes you’ve made.

The questions we want to normalize in our community, and we want everyone to get tons of practice with are, “How did that land? Do you have any feedback for me? How can I create repair?”

Bodies communicate before words do

Body language is real; our bodies are constantly communicating. At dance, this shows up as: leaning in to connection or leaning out, making eye contact or turning away, breathing normally or freezing up. Those with more power need to be extra aware of non-verbal signals, because the central issue is that people on the lower end of the power dynamic may not feel comfortable saying "no" to an invitation.

To be clear, this doesn’t mean anyone needs to be hyper-vigilant. We don’t have to interrogate or over-analyze every moment or ask for verbal confirmation before every weight shift on the dance floor.

But do notice the pattern of who’s doing the initiating. If you’re the one who asked for the dance, and the one who introduced touch, and the one who moved closer, slow down and leave some space for the other person to meet you, rather than just continuing to lead the escalation. Stay open and curious about the person you’re with. When in doubt, ask them verbally where they're at, and if they'd like a change.

When it comes to dance, that’s most of what good partnering is anyway. We’ve all had that dance where you feel like someone wasn’t listening, and it doesn’t feel good. In partner dancing, we all long to dance with people who are sensitively aware and support us, whether we want to continue dancing or want to exit. We can learn to be that person for others.

Accountability is how we Each get stronger

Nobody wants to be the person who caused harm. And nobody wants to be part of a community that treats every mistake as unforgivable. While some harms are more extremem than others, we’re trying to find a different, non-punitive path of accountability.

Most of us will eventually do something that lands badly. We’ll misread a signal, enact a blindspot we didn’t know we had, miss someone’s “no” signal, or move faster than someone wanted because we got excited. When that happens, we want everyone in the community to be able to take accountability and stay with the difficult feelings it brings up to make someone else uncomfortable. It's important we do this instead of either sweeping it under the rug and diminishing the person who felt harmed, or overreacting and burning the other person down so that we don't get blamed for being bad (which we now know we aren't).

Accountability here means actually letting feedback land. Hearing it, sitting with it, taking care of the defensive or misunderstood feelings, talking those feelings out with someone who's not the person we harmed, and letting it change something in us. The growth process is uncomfortable but survivable, and usually people come through it with a significantly bigger capacity to care for others.

What we’re working toward

Imagine a dance floor where your body can fully relax.

Where you can move freely without scanning the room for threats. Where someone invites you to dance, and when you say no they thank you and drift away easefully.

Where the level of closeness you want is the level you get, because the person you’re dancing with is actually paying attention.

Where if something feels uncomfortable, you’re not left alone with it, but are welcomed into a clear process of getting support where you're believed.

Imagine a community where harms don't disappear into whisper networks and rumors, but are addressed. The person harmed is cared for. The person who caused harm gets a real chance to understand how to make repair . And the community becomes more trustworthy over time.

We’re not there yet. We’re working on it, and we believe it’s worth the growing pains.

The action we're taking

Here’s what we’ve built so far:

HeartTenders at every event, trained in trauma-informed support and consent advocacy. They wear pink wristbands, they’re approachable, and their job is to be there for you when you need it.
An online incident report form open 24/7 for anything that arises.
A consent team that includes a consent professional and organizers who review reports, track patterns over time, and support everyone in restorative justice.
Connections with the Consent Academy when incidents escalate beyond our capacity.
Clear policies for what happens when something is reported, with real consequences like education, mediation, or being removed from the space until genuine repair has been made for serious or repeated violations.

More on the specifics in our Code of Conduct and Incident Procedures.

You're a part of Our Community-informed consent Structure

Our community is in the middle of a long upleveling process that began with consent education in the OmCulture space over a decade ago. But building real consent culture asks something from each of us. It means being willing to receive feedback and grow. Being willing to speak up when something makes you uncomfortable. Being willing to sit with discomfort instead of smoothing everything over.

One thing we want to be honest about: for a long time, consent in this space was handled entirely by community volunteers with no formal support, no budget, and no real backing from the business itself. That was the best we could do at the time, and we're grateful to everyone who held that work. But it also meant the process was inconsistent, under-resourced, and sometimes asked too much of individuals who weren't equipped to carry it.

That's changed. Seattle Ecstatica now funds and directly supports the consent infrastructure: the HeartTender program, the Consent Team and the incident process. This means the work has real backing behind it. It also means this is no longer a fully community-run process. It's a community-informed process, shaped by your input and feedback, but with organizational accountability behind it. We acknowledge the power dynamic here and will always provide avenues for feedback (like the suggestion form below).

Building this culture is the foundation that gives us freedom to truly be ourselves and to truly be the compassionate loving people we all long to be. That’s really exciting! Without a deep consent culture, we each feel like we're isolated, need to protect ourselves from “dangerous people,” and harms in the space repeat.

Proudly establishing this culture together is what allows our dance floor to become a place where trust is real vs. performative, and where people become braver, speak up more, and care for each other. It's what we all wanted in the first place when we came to dance: a space that gives us transformational experiences, full expression, self-reflection, and empowered growth.

We're glad you're here co-creating it with us.

This post was informed and inspired by the work of: The Consent Academy · B'ham Hop Dance · Victoria Contact Improvisation Community · Fen Lastra and Jaesic Wade of Changeling Spaces · Dance Ambassadors (OmCulture's previous consent program)