This class explores how to approach new connections with intention, self-awareness, and a clear understanding of your own values. While vetting is often discussed in the context of kink, dating, and sexual relationships, the same skills can help us navigate professional, creative, social, and community connections—including model/photographer relationships, collaborations, clients, colleagues, and other professional or personal partnerships. We’ll examine why vetting matters, how your values and boundaries shape the way you assess compatibility, and how to understand your own risk profile. Rather than treating vetting as a checklist or a guarantee of safety, this class focuses on developing a thoughtful process for making informed decisions about compatibility, pacing, power dynamics, boundaries, and risk.
Together, we’ll explore practical vetting processes and best practices, develop meaningful questions for different types of connections and relationships, and discuss how to recognize both reassuring and concerning responses, behaviors, and patterns. We’ll also examine accountability—how we hold ourselves and others responsible for agreements, boundaries, professional and community standards—and how to respond when those standards aren’t met. The class concludes with reflection designed to help you identify your own values, biases, needs, and decision-making patterns so you can build a vetting practice that is flexible and relevant across different areas of your life.