Who Really Has the Power in a DS Relationship?

[ProjectEuropa]

Though I really wish someone could help the discussion with a definition of 'power'.

There are many definitions of power but the one required for this discussion I would put forward as 'A person of great influence, force or authority'

'Everything is always subject to the submissive's agreement, because nobody holds any power in our relationship.'

Maybe in your relationship but I would imagine in many relationships one party or the other has more power than the other, should people analyse their position. The fact that a relationship is consensual means in theory no one holds power but I wonder how true that is for most couples in reality. One can always walk out of a relationship but when? If you give up a relationship too easily you will never have one of any consequence or you could hold onto a relationship so long it eats you up. A relationship is a balancing act and to succeed has to be to mutual benefit but one party can become more dependent on the other but the relationship still functions. You are defining a model relationship, not an actual relationship. How many people have been distraught as their partner has walked out on them? The very fact that happens so often means that many relationships have been struggling with consensus and one has had more power than the other, the power to walk away which the distraught partner probably felt they didn't have that power.

What they all have in common is that, as soon as there is a power difference between real people or between fictional characters, there can be no free consent between them. If one party has power over the other, it is not consent, it is coercion.

Very little fiction survives without conflict of one sort or another because it is the conflict whether actual or perceived, whether external or internal that drives the characters in the plot. I have read very little fiction that is satisfying where there is no conflict. I have read several in the library with no conflict and felt a lack of satisfaction, primarily I think because the prose was not poetic enough for me to find fulfilling without the driving force of conflict. But why do we like conflict in our fiction? I think it is because we recognize the conflict and we are looking in on ourselves.