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The real deal

Revisado: 02-15-24

Heather Claus (aka Nookie) is the real deal. This book is worth your money, time, and your attention. The book itself is brief and self-explanatory. So, instead of telling you about the book, I’ll tell you about the high quality of *any* advice you get from Nookie.

I have had the good fortune to meet Heather in person, to casually hang out with her once (at a Fourth of July event years ago), and to attend one of her live workshops at a kink club in NC. The class she taught was about consent in the BDSM community. Now, that topic is beaten (bad pun intended) like the proverbial dead horse. Yet, she brought new meaning to the discussion.

There was one piece of “optional” advice she gave that, at the time, I thought was interesting but probably not vital. She even presented it as “a good idea” but not a mandatory rule. The suggestion she made was to refuse to settle for “regular” consent. She suggested that it is wiser to settle for nothing less than “enthusiastic consent.”

In other words, don’t accept a simple “Yes.” Hold out for a “Oh, dear god, please, yes! Please do *that*!” She shared an anecdote about how someone had used this technique with her. It is essentially “saying no,” unless you get that strongly encouraging enthusiastic consent. I have since come to view this idea of enthusiastic consent not as merely practical but as vital.

I suspect this idea continued percolating as she went on teaching. I also guess that Start With No is likely one of the fruits of that continually developing idea.

The consent workshop she shared with us was about the “negotiating” phase, specifically as it relates to kink/BDSM scenes. However, Start With No starts well before even that early stage. Start With No begins when you first interact with someone else, whether online, in public, or a club.

Start With No will only take an hour to listen to or even less to read in print. But it will save you years of hassle and potentially even heartache. Its basic premise extends beyond the kink scene. You can put it to excellent use in *all* areas of life. It will serve you as well in a business negotiation as in a romantic or sexual negotiation.

Get it. Use it. It’s not just a good idea; it’s mandatory.

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