Sheri and RJ on Ginger’s birthday, I was always happy to get the family photos.
The Welcomed Consensus, also known as “Welcomed Consensus,” is a cult implicated in sexual abuse cases.
Here, I share my personal account for readers who have been affected, directly or indirectly, by the activities of this sex cult. My Welcomed Consensus narrative also will provide valuable insights for anyone seeking information on sexual cult abuse, both in a general sense and with a focus on this particular organization.
After leaving America for Europe in November of 1989, I came back to visit a few times. During my first visit, the rift between RJ and me was mostly healed.
Kim had moved into the space I’d left with RJ, Sheri, and Wendy. Kim’s husband, Harvey, had unsurprisingly moved on. It was tough, but I’d expected as much. RJ gave Kim a fur coat in a staged moment – but I didn’t mind. I was glad he was happy, and the women all seemed happy and busy with the babies. It made me feel less guilty about leaving.
Sheri, Wendy, and Kim a few months after I left the U.S. Sheri is pregnant with Ginger.
I knew this ploy at making me jealous and the verbal thrashing over dinner was the price I had to pay for my disloyalty.
After that initial visit, we started to communicate more regularly. Sheri had always sent me cards, photos, and sometimes even gifts; all were a welcome surprise from home. I held them close to me and shared nothing about my chosen family or my life in America with anyone in Europe. I was sure people wouldn’t understand, and I wanted to fit in, to survive.
My North Americanness was already singular enough and compounded by being a single woman. At the time, I believed all the crazy I felt inside me was my own, not a product of my experience, but an innate disfiguration that I could hide, mostly. So I did.
RJ and Mallie.
By 1995, I had been in Europe for almost 6 years. I was teaching English in the North of Spain and decided to go home to the U.S. for the summer.
Previously, I’d stayed in Spain or traveled in Europe during the summer. This year I was emotionally at loose ends after my grandfather and close friend, Mark, had both died. I was turning 30 years old and I had built a life in Europe completely removed from my past. I had friends and work, but I still kept everything to myself. This disconnection had become intense with the addition of long-distance grief. I decided to return to the U.S. for a month or so until school started again in the Fall. I was hoping to find my footing.
This was taken at the school in Spain I worked at the year I left.
This visit back to the States was different as I was staying longer than a week, and I’d brought my one-year-old Mastiff. At first, I stayed with old friends who had once been part of the community but had gotten married, left, and had a kid.
They were happy to have me around, even with my huge dog. America seemed overwhelming and different but completely familiar. I also started visiting Joost Ave. to see RJ and The Welcomed Consensus group.
On one of these visits, RJ and I got into the hot tub in the backyard at Joost and started talking. It was an epic conversation. We drank Miller Light and talked about everything that had happened in the last 6 years. I told him about my travels and RJ told me all about how it had been for him to have these women, and then the babies.
Easter Hats.
How much work it was but how he believed in the information still, like we always had. He told me how scary it was for him to give up the hair salon and decide to devote himself to teaching about female orgasm. RJ was scheduled to teach his first Basic Sense course for the Welcomed Consensus soon. Steve and Vera had been teaching up until that point.
The Welcomed Consensus started with RJ, Sheri, Wendy and Kim, along with Steve and Vera, teachers who had left More House to help start the Welcomed Consensus. Steve and Vera had Validated RJ and the women.
Drs. Steve and Vera Bodansky. Vera called herself my adopted mom before I left for Europe. It meant a lot to me that they wanted to be part of our community.
Validation is the course where you train to demonstrate a 3-hour orgasm in private, and then perform the 1-hour orgasm for the public, and thereby become a member of the Welcomed Consensus.
I assured RJ that he would be great in the course and that I was happy they’d decided to go this route. Before I had left it was, as RJ came to call it, the Wild West. Teaching courses seemed like the next logical step. RJ spoke fondly about other people living in the house. Yvonne and Tom were married and had recently moved in.
Yvonne
They had come from the Forum and RJ talked about how great they were, as well as how great they were at the selling schemes. Dennis had moved back almost a year prior. He had lived at Joost with his wife, who was an old friend of Sheri’s. When they split up he’d come to visit and never left. Francoise was living there but wasn’t Validated yet, and there was also a guy named Bob.
It sounded utopian and RJ spoke fondly of everyone. He told me they had started Free the Need based on Turn on to America (the More House non-profit), and it felt like they had made the family into something that would legitimately be adding to something positive to society – like they had a purpose bigger than themselves.
Francoise, Dennis, and Ginger.
RJ didn’t push me to stay at this point. He only pointed out how I had been running from my demons my whole life. A big Eagles fan, RJ had dedicated the song, “Desperado,” to me a long time ago. He was not wrong about the demons. He told me that if I stopped resisting him, his love, and the pleasurable life he wanted to give me, that I wouldn’t want to run anymore. That in his mind, this is why I left. Because I was too scared to allow him to truly pleasure me and love me.
Shortly after that, I started staying at Joost until I left to go back to Europe, and then I wasn’t leaving at all. I was going to Mark Groups and Benchmarks with RJ and the others and playing. The show we were putting on was clear: I was back from Europe to have an affair with RJ and to do my Validation. RJ had DOne me a couple of times since I had returned, but he still felt more like a friend/brother/dad to
Tom and I shared a birthday cake when I first returned. I turned 30 years old.
me. I was the new shiny object in the community, though, so we kept up the farce of a love affair and I assumed all the power that being “RJ’s oldest friend” bestowed upon me.
I had always admired Vera and we had a special bond even before I left for Europe. She told me that being Validated would not change me but make me a better version of myself. That I would be able to write, and teach, and really, truly, finally be happy with the family I helped to create. She told me, “It’s time for you to take your rightful place in The Welcomed Consensus and come home.” My girlfriends Sheri, Wendy, and Kim, who had been Validated, did seem calmer. Not different, but more themselves. It was exciting to feel like we could build something special together. As Vic said, “Unselfishly serve the Universe and make a profit.” In our minds, female orgasm meant female emancipation.
From the bathroom window looking down into the garden at Joost. From left to right; the “cabana” room where RJ did hair for a while and date room, the schoolhouse/playhouse for the girls, and a hole covered by a blue tarp.
I swallowed it all. I was happy to be surrounded by people who accepted me. I was hopeful that the new structure that the Welcomed Consensus brought to the group would remove the drama that had fueled it before. I also thought that having two small children in the house – Ginger and Mallie – would curb the violence, and for a while all this was true. I even let go of my dog to stay at the house. I gave her to a Mastiff rescue. RJ said I couldn’t keep her. I felt like a complete asshole even contemplating choosing the dog over my family, as usual choosing anything over RJ was abhorrent. But I gave her up and I still miss her.
If you’ve never lived with a group of friends it is hard to describe what it is like and how much fun it can be – working on house projects, creating goals, and just living day to day supporting each other.
1st Christmas back. Dennis, Ginger, Me, Francoise, Tom, Yvonne, Mallie, Wendy, RJ, Kim, and Sheri.
Long mornings in our robes drinking coffee and chatting, planning the next party/course/event, or getting more for Free the Need to give away at the Alemany Housing Projects. It felt like we were building a better world while having a good time.
At first, I looked for work outside the group. I was never asked to give things up directly. It was more of a slow-moving coup of asks, and impressions that left me feeling like I was letting everyone down by not showing up. That by even wanting to spend time with people outside the house I was admitting I was not really on board with the group goals. That I obviously still had outside goals and priorities. It became clear that no job was going to be suitable, at least not one that made more than pocket change.
Another excellent podcast describing how high demand groups work. IndoctriNation Micro-Compromises of Integrity w/Ariela Sarai
Also, eventually, it “costs” the group too much to have someone working in the outside world. The cost was that you come back from the outside world beat up and it affects the group harmony, and therefore everyone’s orgasm. Deciding I was not going to work outside the house meant that I was finally putting my family, my pleasure, and my orgasm first. It was considered a commitment to my goal of Validation.
The gym where Jennifer and I had boxed was closed and she was training in Muy Thai. I went for a while, the coach was great. Then RJ said I was coming back too flat , no tumescence and I had to quit to stay in my Validation.
I took on Free the Need to pay my dues with skin and outside things fell by the wayside, bit by bit. Before long I was only going out into the world for Free the Need or The Welcomed Consensus business.
I didn’t see old friends unless they came to a Benchmark and I didn’t reach out to anyone I had known before. Letting go of outside relationships was way easier than trying to carve out time from the group
Since I had planned on returning to Europe, I needed to back, get my things, and close out my life there. There was a Come Together course coming up and RJ wanted me to find a partner who would pay for my trip to Spain and back. The Come Together is an advanced floor course where you have to have a partner to enroll. It lasts for 8 weeks and is held once a week. More University calls it Mutual Stimulation of the Human Nervous System, or Mutual Stim., and it’s also called the Two-Headed Monster or the Cock Sucking Course, to give you an idea.
Come Together course, 1995.
The Welcomed Consensus had a few men who were put up as possible partners, and one finally took me back and helped me to pack up and leave Spain. He was a saint. I started throwing up when my students started stopping by to say goodbye. I then threw up all day, and as we drove to the airport. I see that now for what it was, but at the time I believed the uncontrollable retching was anything but the fear of returning home and giving up my life there. He packed me up and got me home. Afterward, he couldn’t quite understand what had happened to him. We finished the course, but then he didn’t come around much and RJ didn’t make him very welcome when he did.
The hole uncovered. For no particular reason this huge hole was dug in the backyard. Mainly because RJ likes people to be busy. Talk of a distillery, bunker, etc. The concrete brick was even ordered.
At The Welcomed Consensus in Joost where everyone slept was all about status, still is. RJ and Sheri slept in the master bedroom upstairs and Wendy and Kim stayed in the other bedroom on that floor. The downstairs was one big room with a little room with the laundry room and bathroom sectioned off. Mallie and Ginger, the girls, had the little room in the back, but mostly slept upstairs with Wendy and Kim. Downstairs were some queen size bunk beds and some room dividers for a small office for Free the Need. RJ had been converting the garage when I left for Europe and now Tom and Yvonne slept in one bed, and Dennis and Francoise in another. At first, I slept upstairs, too, but when it became clear I wasn’t actually going to start making out with RJ again I was moved downstairs.
Francoise and Dennis with a community members baby. The house was always full of residents and visitors.
If you lived downstairs you got up every day at 6 am and did 1-hour of Withholds with someone who was chosen for you by the Welcomed Consensus in a House Meeting. All of us were expected to get off/be DOne every day, or whenever someone from the Welcomed Consensus asked you to have a DO date, or whenever there was a general call in the house for everyone to get DOne. Everyone cooked and ate dinner together and there was usually something going on most evenings.
The Welcomed Consensus community that surrounded us was a mix of More University and Forum students that moved freely between the groups taking courses. We got dressed up to attend and run Benchmarks, flirt, and tease, and get people to want to come to do the courses. Before and after the Benchmarks, we would have endless meetings on who is hot for/playing who, and who should contact a “mark” next. We would gossip and then make phone calls to get people into groups and courses.
In the kitchen at Joost during a course in 1995.
There weren’t many new people taking the courses, but everyone in the house had to be involved. Those in our surrounding community that was “coming our way” would be invited to repeat the course at a discount by whoever in the house they had the most connection with or the biggest crush. If you lived at Joost, you were either in the course, cooking, and helping take care of the students and teachers, or you were doing “Effect” or a mixture of all. If it was suggested by the Welcomed Consensus that you take the course, you had to find a way to pay for it either with cash, “skin”, or enrolling more people. House members were expected to take the courses, do all the homework, and be a turned-on example of the information and what it could bring to your life.
“Effect” is where you put all your attention on someone. You are “Cause” and you put them “at effect” of you. I did “Effect” in the courses and wore the French Maid costume. I was there to be part of the show and strolled through the room to take care of the teachers and/or be a distraction, a turn-on.
Me doing Effect for the first time in my new outfit.
There is a course The Welcomed Consensus copied from More University called the “Effect Course.” Kim taught you how to put your attention on someone, anticipate all their needs, and be a first-rate servant. Again, like the female orgasm, this was a higher calling – to serve and put someone at effect was a skill and proved a thirst for enlightenment and orgasm.
I started cooking for the family 4 nights a week, and I really enjoyed taking care of my family in this way. When the little girls would come to me and ask, “Chrissy, what’s for dinner?” I loved it and felt like a fully useful member of the family. The longer I was there the more involved and invested I became – not just in the business, but with the family, the belief system, and the overall viewpoint that we were doing something that most people wouldn’t understand. People might not be able to have it, but we fervently wished it for everyone. I wished it for everyone.
Dennis and I were made Withhold partners because he was hanging out/having sex mostly with Francoise. Since they were an item, it was considered safe for Dennis and I to do Withholds together. RJ called Dennis the interloper, but Dennis called himself the President of Mexico: “Manuel Labor.” He had the most enthusiasm for hard work and had the softest spot for Sheri out of everyone. He was always positive and full of energy.
Sheri, Dennis, and Bob in the dining room at Joost.
I had officially started my Validation, but my life was already consumed by the family and our projects. There was a constant stream of Benchmarks, house meetings, and courses which we all worked hard on in an effort to build the business. Besides all my other duties, I also had to get off six days times per day and write it up for my Validation course. Harvey had come back. I had always had a soft spot for Harvey and was glad to have him home. They were all in different stages of “training” themselves, but Harvey, Dennis, Tom, and Bob were all on board to help me reach my goal.
Basically, the idea behind all the orgasm is that if you can feel and name sensation on your clitoris, then that feeling will spread and grow. If you push out instead of clenching, and then relax, then the sensation 
will spread throughout your body. If you lay still and relax and communicate about every millimeter of touch with your partner, then your orgasm begins to change – you don’t rush up and over the edge, have a few seconds of intense sensation and contractions, then drop back down. You spread that sensation out and learn to ride the intense peaks and valleys. It’s like meditation but the object of meditation is your clitoris.
The men DOing the women are taught to bring them up and down, and then leave them somewhere along the way. If I had to go out into public I was brought down. If I was staying home, I was left higher. Going over the “edge” was strictly forbidden, and if a guy took you over he would be shamed and not allowed to DO you, or possibly anyone again until he was deemed trustworthy.
Dennis taking a break from “the hole”. I pulled a chain down there when I first came back. RJ was so proud.
This happened with Dennis and me. We had been getting closer and closer between the Withholds, and all the time working on Free the Need and having dates. He had quickly become my favorite DOer, so it wasn’t a total surprise when RJ took him out of my rotation. I asked RJ to let him back in – after all, that was a lot of dates to have every day. RJ relented, but I could tell he was not pleased.
There is a lot of energy to be had harnessing sexual tension. In the community it is called “tumescence,” and all energy is attributed to this. It’s created for bad or good and rooted in your sexual desires, as well as in your resistance to your sexual desires. There was still plenty of sexual psychodramas, but now it had a reason and rhyme. There were theories and solutions to jealousy, sadness, anger, and dissatisfaction. Getting off, we were told, solved everything.
Tom and Dennis digging “the hole”. After some months, and neighbors complaints, it was torn down and filled in with dirt and concrete brick.
Vera and Steve came over one day and all of the Welcomed Consensus were having a meeting in RJ’s room. The rest of us were around the house doing chores and working on projects. I was downstairs in the bunk room and when I heard the crash and yelling, my heart sank. I knew what those sounds meant. When I came running in with everyone else, Vera and Steve were walking out the door. RJ was standing there panting slightly. He had a devilish grin on his face and said, “Good, those mother fuckers…” Sheri and Kim came out of his bedroom and ushered him back in. He seemed a bit drunk but it was just a moment. A few minutes later, Kim came out and said that RJ and Steve had had a fight, and RJ had punched Steve.
Vera and Steve left the Welcomed Consensus that day and although Sheri sent letters to them now and again, they never spoke again. I, of course, never spoke to them again either. Sides were taken and the rumor mill pumped out even more reasons it was good they were gone. RJ never apologized.
Steve and Vera more recently. They continue to publish books on orgasm, friendship, and poetry.
We were told that when RJ punched Steve, both Steve and RJ were responding to Vera. Ultimately Vera wanted RJ to punch Steve so he did the right thing. In the end, all of it was what Vera wanted and RJ was the hero for being willing to give it to her. The narrative supported the broader narrative of women being in charge because we have “call” and “response” and that men are just our play things
The Welcomed Consensus continued to put on courses with everyone in the house, only without Vera and Steve. Kim had a bunch of the notes and now RJ, Sheri, Wendy, and Kim did all the teaching.
The Welcomed Consensus ad for Basic Sense. This is Rebecca, or Becca. She is the cook at the Ranch now. The Welcomed Consensus removed their own photos but continue to use their community’s and even their children’s to promote themselves.
There was a whole stream of courses that would take people from Basic Sense, through a bunch of other prerequisites, and then hopefully to an advanced course. Or, at least, that was the plan.
After doing the Basic Sense course people were signed up for the “Touch and Look” course. It’s called Advanced Sense at More University and it is the first level ‘floor course’. No partner is necessary. It is the course where the marks you have been working on outside and at the Benchmarks get to come and practice DOing on the people living inside Joost. All non Welcomed Consensus women had to be in the course; men only if there was a woman taking it for them. It is an eight-week course given once per week with homework in between.
At the start of the course, everyone takes their turn standing naked in front of the mirror and talks about what they like about their body. Then everyone moves on to the floor for DOing practice as the teachers wander around giving instruction. You were considered a star pupil if RJ bent down and gave you a few strokes to show the newbies how to DO you. He also did this if you were not engorging or looking like you were enjoying yourself. He wanted to make the men feel like winners even if they were mashing you.
Touch and Look 1995, Yvonne and Tom with when they were still married, I’m in back, Erwan, Francoise and Dennis.
During this time, I must have been in at least four TLC courses and numerous Basic Sensuality classes. During Basic Sense, I was sometimes just brought in from my cooking duties to make up my exercises or share a fantasy on the spot to turn everyone on if things were moving slowly. We also put on Beauty and the Beast and Charm School, both lecture and discussion courses that dive deeper into the theory and belief systems of the group. The Welcomed Consensus made its first video at this time.
The group grew until there were 16 adults and 2 children living in a small 2 bedroom house. Things were always quickly changing and intense at the house. Francoise had started her Validation, along with RJ’s favorite woman from outside the house.
Dennis and Francoise in the Touch and Look course.
This woman, who shall remain nameless, would be brought in whenever Sheri, Wendy, and Kim had had enough of RJ. She would have sex with him, drink with him and suck his cock, thereby relieving some of the tension in the house. We became good friends and I was as glad as anyone when she came over.
This is when recruiting women as pacifiers for RJ started in earnest with the women of the Welcomed Consensus. They told everyone, including themselves, that this woman should be and was grateful. They believed that RJ finding a woman fun enough to let them suck his cock was a status symbol. If they were fun enough for the Guru, they must be advanced cummers. It was clear, even then, that this was also a breather for Sheri, Wendy, and Kim from having to take care of RJ and his demands, especially when he got twisted up about something.
Observation of Intense Coming, or the Demo. You must preform this orgasm to be a member of the Welcomed Consensus.
In one of our house meetings, RJ was frustrated and said he didn’t want us to become like More University. Not everyone needed to get Validated. I felt relief. My Validation had stalled and I was starting to wonder if I really wanted to get off for an hour, anyway…the constant DOing was not making me want it more. But then RJ said, “Except you Chrissy, you have to be Validated.” I felt simultaneously doomed and special.
He obviously loved me best and it was as much a slight to the other women in their Validations as it was a demand for me. I didn’t care how Francoise and the other woman felt, I was doubtful. I felt like there was something wrong with me that I didn’t want this more, but I said nothing. “Doubt your doubt” and “fake it till you feel it” were some of the pith sayings in the community that helped me not at all. They only pointed out again, the problem was me, my behavior, that was screwing everything up.
Susan and RJ and the draped gynecological table used for sessions.
Validation works like a Confirmation session or any personal intensive. You keep a journal and you have “Sessions” when the Welcomed Consensus feels like you are ready. Being ready means being attractive to RJ – physically, financially, or in action. These DOing sessions always followed the same format. The demonstration table was set up (a gynecological table draped in sheets and towels) in RJ’s room, and one of the women of the Welcomed Consensus got on the table. The other Welcomed Consensus women hung back for support. RJ would DO the woman and I would describe everything good that I saw, felt, and thought she was feeling. This was the warm-up.
Then I would get on the table and RJ would put on latex gloves (for screening purposes) and DO me. The women would watch and describe what they saw and felt. They would coach me, as well: “Relax and push out” or, “That feels good, Chrissy.” Sometimes RJ would talk to me and sometimes he would only talk to the women in the room. Sometimes he would be sweet and sometimes dismissive. When it was over, we would discuss everything that happened, they would take my journal to read, and give me my homework for the next session (usually more dates and write-ups).
Another Touch and Look course at Joost, Francoise before Validation, Susan and Bill when they were still married, Dennis after I started cutting his hair, and Richard before I started cutting his.
By this point, the Welcomed Consensus managed every aspect of my life. I had fully bought in and was glad to be a cog in the wheel of the community. I believed that they knew the path to the 1-hour orgasm and if I just followed directions I would get there, too. Sometimes I thought it would be easier if I went to More University for this training and then came back. The connection I had with RJ made it harder, but I told myself it would only be worthwhile if it was with him. This was for all of us.
I was called into a session one day so I showered and prepared myself. I put on the robe I reserved for these sessions and came into RJ’s room. Wendy was the warm-up, and Kim and Sheri sat on the bed while I sat on a stool at the foot of the DOing table. Then it was my turn.
I got on the table and it was painful right out of the gate. The clitoris has the highest concentration of nerve endings in a woman’s body. In the DOing technique, the top of the clitoris is anchored with the thumb which also holds back the clitoral hood, exposing the head of the clitoris. With lubricant, the DOer puts his finger down in the crease of the upper left quadrant, smaller than a pea, and strokes deliberately. Done correctly, there is a world of sensation to discover in a very small area. Sometimes it can feel painful like a needle, and with a partner you can trust you ask for lighter pressure, or maybe they move to a different spot. I could not ask for this from RJ, especially during a session where my job was to surrender. He wasn’t pressing hard but it was too intense.
Sometimes you can push out and push through the pain. RJ was DOing me so however he was touching my clitoris was correct. With RJ, you never asked for harder or lighter but accepted that he knew you and your body best. He was right and a perfect responder. He insisted everyone look and speak to a woman’s face when DOing a woman, but he usually does not/did not because he is the master.
I could not relax and I could not get away from the pain. Sheri came over and pushed on my chest and said, “Relax.” She could tell I was struggling. Finally, RJ shifted spots on my clit and I felt relief. He did me for a while and then started saying, “Come on, give it up.” I pushed out and relaxed, trying to reach for the sensation, keeping my attention on the tip of his finger.
“Come on you hold-out bitch, give it to me,” he said. He kept DOing me. I started to feel bad but struggled to stay in the moment. Then he slapped me – hard – full on my pussy. It stung throughout my crotch. He kept DOing me.
RJ and the Welcomed Consensus have the belief that a woman won’t “give it up” (surrender control of her nervous system through her clitoris) to a man unless she knows he is willing to go all the way to give her what she wants. Fear, pain, and coercion are considered dedication to the cause of superior orgasm and higher friendships.
RJ teaching from one of the Welcomed Consensus videos.
I crashed. I couldn’t feel anything but the stinging and RJ was getting more annoyed. He smacked my crotch again. Sheri, Wendy, and Kim were all sitting on the bed looking very solemn. I know they had been here and I knew they wouldn’t and couldn’t do anything to save me. “Come on! You bitch!” And he slapped me again. My crotch was burning all over now and I could hardly discern where he was touching me anymore. Then he made a disgusted sound, stopped DOing me, and grabbed my nipple.
He squeezed hard while turning towards the women and talking to them on the bed. “I don’t think she is ready, she’s going to fight me, she always has.” By now, he was squeezing my nipple so hard I had started to cry. I thought he was going to rip it off. RJ let go but continued his description of my faults and inability to make him right by getting off as he had asked.
I was laid out on the table still with my feet in the stirrups and legs spread. He came over and matter of factly inserted two fingers into me. “Wow,” he said looking at the women on the bed, “She has a really short cervix, come here and check it out.” Both Sheri and Wendy looked sick to their stomachs, but Kim came over and stuck her fingers inside of me. She didn’t look at me, but smiled at RJ and said, “Wow, you’re right”.
RJ’s 50th birthday and Free the Need fundraiser. The Welcomed Consensus used to support FTN, now Free the Need supports the Welcomed Consensus.
RJ said a few more things about how I was only holding out to hurt him and then said, “I’m done.” He wiped his hands, took off the gloves, and left the room. Kim followed, shaking her head and smirking. “You’re so defiant,” she added before leaving. Sheri and Wendy gave me sympathetic looks and then left as well. I got dressed and went downstairs, my pussy and nipple throbbing.
I avoided everyone and went to my bunk. Looking back now I know I was struck dumb. What happened had put me in a state of severe freeze and I was literally speechless. Eventually, I had to get up and do what was expected of me but everyone kept a wide berth. RJ made no secret about his lingering displeasure at my performance so everyone set about soothing him, while I was fine hiding my shame and focusing on my chores out of sight.
The next morning, I was cleaning out the Free the Need truck. We had a box truck and I was sweeping out the back when Dennis came and sat on the tailgate. He kept trying to engage me in light conversation, and then any conversation.
At RJ’s birthday fund raiser for Free the Need.
I was still struggling to speak but he got the idea. He sat there with me talking and making silly jokes. He didn’t ask for anything from me and I felt like he understood. We’d already had all kinds of sex and intimate disclosures through our day-to-day experience. I always think of this moment when he saw me feeling down, but liked me anyway. Being down was not popular in the group, so his acceptance was meaningful to me.
Jennifer happened to visit that day, as well. She stopped by with her new husband and I remember needing to go say hi, but then leaving as soon as I could. I couldn’t speak to her or act naturally. I was struggling and in fear, but I didn’t think of it that way – only that I had failed and was ashamed.
Dennis and me on his birthday in 1996.
With time, I came around. I continued to run Free the Need with Dennis and even helped out in the courses. Dennis and I were more of an item now, and Francoise was fully in her Validation, as was the outside woman. I was fine with the way things had worked out and was glad that RJ and the Welcomed Consensus were too busy with Validating those two to look much at me. RJ made it clear I was a disappointment. My choice to give my attention to Free the Need rather than the Welcomed Consensus showed my small-mindedness in their eyes, and choosing Dennis over RJ showed them my lack of willingness to surrender, but RJ mostly left me alone for now.
I put everything into Free the Need. Dennis and I would take the truck to the produce market and pick up boxes of fruits and vegetables until it was bulging. Then we would go to the Bayview and meet a group of volunteers from the neighborhood who would help us distribute it into upwards of 100, 60-pound boxes. We received food from the Food Bank and bread from a local bakery. I picked up donations and traded goods with other non-profits to add extras to the boxes. Then we would pack it up and give it all away a few streets down. Hardly anything was brought home to feed the group in those days.
Dennis and I cooked for 4 days and made a Mexican Feast for the family for his birthday. He was working outside the house by now but we’d stayed up late cooking. It was another thing we could connect over in the chaos.
Dennis and I had a really good time and met some amazing people, but eventually, it was only he and I Free the Need with volunteers. People from the house used to come help and they were still needed, but since it was thought to be a lesser goal than the Welcomed Consensus business, participation from people living in the house fell off. Dennis and I didn’t care. We enjoyed the process and the people. You can feel really good about your life sitting in a hot tub with a beer after giving away tons of food.
Then RJ decided that Dennis had to get a job outside of the house. He claimed Dennis needed to pitch in financially and just wasn’t “housebroken” enough. Dennis started looking for outside work. I thought RJ was trying to drive a wedge between us, but I believed he had my best interest at heart. It was just RJ being RJ. We all accepted behavior from him we wouldn’t from anyone else. When Dennis got a job and started paying his dues with cash, RJ said that he had to pay for my dues, as well. I got mad but RJ shut me down saying he had been carrying the family long enough. I asked if that meant I could stop working so hard on Free the Need; he just said “Chrissy” in that way, and I knew to leave it alone.
Over the two-year period since I had come back, Yvonne had moved into Bob’s bunk and Kim had moved into Tom’s bed. Dennis and I slept in the other bed and Francoise had moved upstairs. You would be right to guess that there was a lot more psycho-drama attached to these changes than I have room for or interest in mentioning here. At this point, it was just part of living in the family and it didn’t stop Dennis and me from becoming closer. Dennis was the first person who loved my family and understood my attachment to them. He even liked my biological family and was always happy to run cover for me at family events.
Sheri, RJ, Yvonne, Francoise, Wendy, and Kim and Tom in 1996.
Then there was another Touch and Look Course put on the schedule. I had been relegated to mostly behind-the-scenes by now, but this time RJ said I had to be in the course. In the house meeting, I said I didn’t want to do the course again, I had done it so many times before. Without a pause, RJ said, “You can either do the course or move out.”
That shut me up but from that moment on I was in a panic. The thought of getting up in front of a room of people naked again and letting anyone who paid the entrance fee to touch my pussy, made me feel physically sick. The panic would start and no amount of DOing or alcohol or Withholds could take it away. I didn’t know why I was feeling so desperate to not be in the course, but I was scared. I told Dennis I was going to leave if I had to and asked if he’d come. He wasn’t really saying yes or no but it didn’t matter. I knew my days were numbered.
The house meeting was like all others, though it felt to me like RJ was dancing around the inevitable confrontation. By now he and I had broken up many times before. When he started to discuss the course plans he looked at me and I said, “I don’t want to be in the course.” RJ said calmly, “Get out.” So I got up and went downstairs to pack my clothes, they were all I owned. Francoise came down. She had been Validated by now and wanted me to stay. “Please don’t go, he doesn’t mean it,” she pleaded with me. “Yes he does Francoise and you know it,” I replied.
The backyard at Joost.
Francoise went on to say that I didn’t have to find him right all the time, just when he was DOing me. For a minute I was unsure who she was talking about. Then I realized she was still hoping for me to get Validated as she had done. The physically painful breaking of your will was hinted at in Validation but was glossed over and never shared. By now I’d decided it was not worth the pain, plus if I couldn’t be in a Touch and Look course, how was I getting on the table in front of everyone with my legs spread? I felt deflated and just wanted to get away before RJ started yelling or hitting.
Dennis came down and grabbed his clothes and we left the angry crowd of loved ones behind. Now he was ostracized too, just as I’d always been when I left before. An old friend of Dennis’s took us in. We stayed with him until we could get enough together to rent an apartment. We were both shaken for a while after that. It is a relief to have your life back with no one running your schedule, but it also hollows you out to be disconnected from so many, so quickly, and so completely.
I’m sure it’s no surprise for you to know that Dennis and I were eventually forgiven. In the following decades, we continued to be involved with the group but that is for another day.
Take care and thanks for reading,
Christine
UPDATE: In case there is any doubt, neither I nor anyone who has ever questioned the intentions of The Welcomed Consensus believes this group has actually shut down. Sheri and RJ’s daughter, Ginger, is currently teaching at San Francisco State University and at California College of the Arts. She is working on getting her degree in Human Sexuality. She has changed her name from Ginger Testerman to Ginger Testerman Mueller and has dropped her association with the name Gia Lynne altogether.
I’m sure I don’t need to explain the problems with this. In fact, Ginger repeatedly commends her family and parents’ lifestyle in her thesis. This lifestyle included her father DOing women in front of her and her sister, Mallie, when she was 14 years old and Mallie was 15 years old, and the use of violent submission practices to achieve “superior orgasm.” I’ve known Ginger Testerman Mueller since she was 2 years old, and I do not relish exposing her. I would have liked to believe that the things I witnessed were not harmful, but I am starting to realize there was probably more harm done than I previously accepted or understood.
Ginger is a seasoned recruiter now, and her book, “On Blossoming,” is a testament to her father’s control over her thinking and her actions. It is business as usual for The Welcomed Consensus. There is no doubt that the recruiting is continuing at a high level.
We are currently in the process of alerting SFSU and CCA to the danger of Ginger being in a position of authority and expertise in an academic environment. Ginger’s name change makes it impossible for her students and colleagues to research her background, her ideology, and family history in order to decide for themselves whether they are comfortable with her presence in the classroom. So far, we have had no confirmation that SFSU and CCA are doing anything to protect the student body from her influence. We’ll continue to update the blog as this unfolds.
If you or someone you know has been negatively impacted by Ginger Testerman, or if you have information regarding Ginger’s role in her father’s recruiting schemes, please file a report with SFSU here.
