Consent is Meaningless Without Agency

[misty {HBMan}]

Agency is an important aspect of any relationship. Together with consent, it forms the basis of WIITWD.


Agency is defined as:
. 'Your ability to take action, be effective, influence your own life, and assume responsibility for your behavior are important elements in what you bring to a relationship.' -Psychology Today

It worries me that practitioners of BDSM place so much emphasis on consent (which is good) but when speaking to Dom and sub alike and you mention agency, they have no idea what you are talking about.

Please let me explain: Agency is the basis of consent. It is the core of ethical kink.

Consent is agreeing to things. Agreeing that you may be spanked or touched.

For kink to be ethical, a person 'must have free will, must be able to determine what is best for him, must be able to make his own choices.'
This is agency.

This brings me to the reason for this thread: When submissives tell me that they need a push from a Dominant partner to do things they don't actually know they actually want to do, I disagree vehemently. Because they are saying they don't have agency. And without agency, consent is void.

Is this not the reason for the confusion i see more and more on sites such as this? Is this not, at the heart, what is wrong with online hypnosis abuse that is becoming more and more rampant?

Subbies don't want to put their big boy and girl panties on and exercise their agency to give consent. It's so much easier to imagine that submission means being told what to do and doing it.

Obedience is important. But that happens only after agency and consent. If obedience is asked for or demanded before agency and consent, run!

We call that abuse.




I'd love to hear further thoughts.

[The Jaded Dominant { koral }]

Excellent post misty and a wonderful explaniation of Agency or free will the terms are interchangeable..
now This trend you bring up on online hypnosis is worth a thread of it's own. I personally have helped several subbies who have been harmed by untrained Dumbinants
using Hypnosis. Unscrupulous Dumbinants and asshats using "suggestion" to tell the sub she will only cum for he/she/it or worse with no idea of how Hypnosis works other than finding a video of induction techniques downloaded from the net.... this like watching the full set of the 2 Knotty boys videos does NOT makes One a bondage Master.
Learning to induce does NOT make you a Hypnotist much less a Licensed one. Stay the hell out of peoples minds
J D

[misty {HBMan}]

I couldn't agree more JD. That is another thread I plan on writing. I've been doing some research and will share that soon.



Regarding agency:

I think new people look at old, established power exchange relationships and see the level of control the Dominant partner has over the submissive one and they immediately want to unnaturally play at that level, imagining this to be what 'real D/s' looks like.

[The Jaded Dominant { koral }]

I couldn't agree more JD. That is another thread I plan on writing. I've been doing some research and will share that soon.



Regarding agency:

I think new people look at old, established power exchange relationships and see the level of control the Dominant partner has over the submissive one and they immediately want to unnaturally play at that level, imagining this to be what 'real D/s' looks like.

I agree but most do not understand is the depth and intimacy of these Old relationships.. the amount of give and take needed by both takes YEARS of being together with open honest communication...
A D/s relationship like any, requires time and commitment.. It is WORK Hard work and again communication.
J D

[misty {HBMan}]

the amount of give and take needed by both takes YEARS of being together with open honest communication...

This is so important. Both give, both take. In different ways and different things. If it is one sided, either the giving or the taking, it isn't going to end well.

[foxy lady]

mmm does this mean you loose agency when you hit subspace?

[misty {HBMan}]

This is an excellent question, foxy. It underscores the need to exercise caution, to negotiate well, and be mindful when exercising agency and giving consent. Be very sure you have reason to trust the Once leading you into subspace.

[Jumphigher]

"Obedience is important. But that happens only after agency and consent. If obedience is asked for or demanded before agency and consent, run!"

I agree entirely. It also strikes me as the mark of an inexperienced top or bottom. There's a reason we consider a college diploma worth more than a participation certificate you printed out on your computer at home. One has meaning given by the effort it took to earn, one is just paper. I feel as though somebody just doing what another person orders without caring about it or understanding it, that's not a satisfying submission. The headspace of knowing that something is going to be really difficult for me, and I am going to commit to do it (or have it done to me) anyway, that's like a gift, both to myself and my partner. Agency is necessary for ethical consent, and it just also makes for a much hotter scene.

[misty {HBMan}]

@Jumphigher: an excellent point.

My Dom and I had a discussion recently where we commented on how, wanting the pain He is going to give me is part of the appeal of playing with pain. As a Dom, this is what makes a scene mind blowing... when I ache and moan and cry but, still endure what He gives. Because ...well, .....agency.

Thanks for adding your thoughts!

[pigslave]

There is a paradox to D/s activities that misty's original post and foxy lady's post point out--consent is necessary but the whole point for this slave (which is what i think of myself as) is to get into sub space and be under the dominance of my Mistress and/or Master. It has seemed to me that the best experiences i have had have been those where i was taken to places that i had darkly fantasized about but never expected to actually go. i had shared those with my Mistress but identified them as "just fantasies". I never gave actual advance verbal "consent" to those activities and when She introduced some of them into a scene, She did not ask me first if i objected. However, i was so deeply into subspace at the time that i just went with it and every time was glad i did.
Two important points, i think. First, when She did these things (not all at one time but over a period of time) i had already been serving Her for a while (we were not in an exclusive relationship with each other), i strongly trusted Her even though somewhere in the back of my head was a voice saying "OMG this is going a lot further than i thought it would." Second, i do not feel i ever lacked "agency" in the sense that we had a safe word which i knew, based on my trust of Her, She would honor. But when i get into sub space, i am not ever really thinking of safe words or "time to stop now". i fall into a mind set of obedience and submission, even where i might be begging not to do something and sort of mean it, but do it anyway because Mistress has ordered it.
So i am not in disagreement with Misty's opening post in principle, but before this thread developed with very good posts by everyone, it did sound a little like one of the pc policies of "consent means there must be explicit verbal consent before each additional step in a sexual encounter is commenced". i do not mock those policies but i think they would be utterly unworkable in a D/s scene that would be at all satisfying at least for me.

[misty {HBMan}]

Interesting and valid points.

Your own experience mentions 2 things: a history, and trust.

My issue with submissives who want to experience everything but without those two things. Continuous trustworthy experiences with someone grows trust in them. While it never takes away my agency and therefore responsibility, it allows me freedom to let go and rely on my Dominant partner.


My experience more and more is that submissives are treated badly, neglected or pushed into experiences that the did not want, in one case she explicitly stated that it was a hard limit. Then the Dominant told her that she has no choice in the matter anymore because she is now 'his', (all of this after a very short space of time) and her attempting to accept the situation because 'she must be obedient'.

This which I sketched above is not the same situation as which you describe, I agree, pigslave.

[medusa]

I think that the topic of agency is kind of hard to define when you're in a full time relationship and have been for many years. The checks on consent and agency look pretty much identical when you know each other really well and there is very little that is truly new to experience.

He knows what I like, I know what He likes and He knows that one of the things that I like is to be 'forced' to do things that will push me past my ability to cope, and we're both really aware that this can look like there's neither consent nor agency. We both know that there is, and that whatever I consent to wear gives Him consent on what He may do. We live in a small house which is terraced and which has other houses attached on both sides with thin walls, so if I choose not to wear the solid gag He knows without asking what I'm not up for. We could spend time discussing it in detail and me giving Him specific consent, but it would only be for anybody who happened to overhear the conversation.

He also knows, and pays enough attention to, everything from posture to facial expression to make safe words and balls pretty much redundant. They're still there, but we recently had to replace the balls because the rubber had perished so badly- that's an idea of how long He's been placing them gently into my hands.

I recognise that this simply wouldn't apply to a newer relationship, nor should it.

[misty {HBMan}]

Agreed, medunsa, and thank you for your very true words.

The important part for me is here:
...I like is to be 'forced' to do things that will push me past my ability to cope, and we're both really aware that this can look like there's neither consent nor agency. We both know that there is, ...

The agency is there. It just isn't there for the world to see. And it doesn't need to be.


I also really agreed with:
I recognise that this simply wouldn't apply to a newer relationship, nor should it.

I can't agree more. How we relate to each other changes as the relationship grows. We can't start where yours are now. Just as you should never go back to where others may be now.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!