Negotiating and Consent

"It is rare indeed for a person to give consent and enter into a solemn agreement with anything but the vaguest notion of where that consent will lead. Marriage is an agreement that regularly devolves into pain and conflict and is not the least bit what the bride and groom foresaw when they made their vows. Even if they learn to accommodate and enjoy a “successful” marriage they can, in the end, wind up in a 24/7 nursemaid obligation. (When they talked so bravely about “in sickness and health” the had no idea….)My particular interest is in Corporal Punishment as a rout to self-realisation and reformation... One may agree to such an arrangement and the punishment can then be considered “consensual” but, if the punishment is to have any effect at all it is bound to reach a point where the person who is about to be on the receiving end wants to withdraw that consent. Can the consent in a disciplinary situation be unilaterally withdrawn?I think the point I wish to make is that we all enter into agreements and want desperately to withdraw our consent at one time or another."

This comment of Jack's to the previous post, set me to thinking about "negotiation" and "consent." He speaks to the committments made in the relationship of marriage, and compares them in some sense to the sort of committments (and struggles) that I've copped to here. He notes that often, in marriage at least, the bride and groom make the promises that are intended to bind them for a lifetime with only the vaguest notion of what they are getting themselves into.

Is the question, then this: Can consent be given when we cannot know?

I married, when I married, quite young. I'd been sheltered, by some standards, kept away from the world, isolated in a family that prevented me from knowing how others lived and thought. Conversely, I was damaged by a family dynamic that was abusive and neglectful, and marriage seemed to me a road out of a very bad situation. I did not "negotiate" well on my own behalf in that event. To have done so, I would have had to have known who I was and what I had to bring to the table. I would have needed some realistic sense of my own value -- my strengths, my desires, my wants and needs as well as my deficiencies. I had none of that information. I was working blind. In retrospect, I don't think he had a clue either. None of the adults who proposed to "advise" us were much use as it turns out when I look back from this vantage point either. That transaction was made in desperation -- it was equivalent to trying to get out of a forest fire by closing your eyes, running as fast as you can, and hoping that you don't run into anything. The end result was probably predictable.

Through all the years that I worked in corporate settings, I had the opportunity to see masterful negotiations: I learned by observing what it meant to come to a situation prepared to demand full status at the bargaining table; aware of what was at stake. To be prepared to give and take from a position of knowing what you have to offer and what you require in exchange is fundamental to effective negotiating and true "consent."

During the time that I had access to the public scene, I was lucky to be in proximity to one very carefully negotiated scene between an experienced Top and a fairly new bottom. It was a fascinatingly intricate exploration of the details of the what and how and why of their proposed interaction. The two of them spent far more time discussing the scene they were contemplating than the actual event itself would likely end up requiring. Before it was all over with, I'd overheard more about their backgrounds and communication styles and various likes and dislikes than I could have even imagined. Far more than I'd ever shared with my own partner (who was my husband), and more than I've probably ever discussed with Master if the truth were told. I imagine that when the point of "consent" was reached between the two of them on that evening, there was very little doubt as to what it actually included or meant.

Entering into M/s, I sense that we grew into it rather than ever actually discussing it or formally "negotiating" it. It simply became, over time, an acknowledged fact between us. Complicated by distance and time and poly, our relationship is that complex tangle of power exchange and love that is not uncommon in the BDSM community, and so there are maze-like layers of connection and interwoven emotions for us to navigate. We plunged together into the deep waters of intense relating, and then, little by little, over many weeks and months, did the work of discovering the finer details of who we each were. Careful negotiating steps were almost certainly skipped in our headlong rush. Had we, either one of us, approached this with any sort of cool-headed logic or reason, the consent stage would have probably looked significantly different.

Not that it matters at this juncture. It happened. But we were not considered about it. Not at all.

Whatever. However much more carefully the negotiations might have been conducted; however much more technically perfect and contractually specific the consent might have been made to seem, real life, real time, day to day, week to week, long-term relating brings with it something far more nebulous most of the time. As Jack points out, it is nearly impossible to predict or project the realities for which we are consenting at the beginning of a "long-haul" relationship whether that be a deliberate sort of power exchange dynamic, or something more traditionally structured like a marriage.

We come into these things with certain personal "capital" to bring to the bargain, hopeful to make whatever deal can bring us close to the fulfillment we envision at the outset. If we are people of any sort of wisdom, any degree of maturity, any level of experience, we may have some knowledge from which to negotiate the details of the bargain that we make at the beginning. Hopefully, we know going in something of who we really are at that point, and can enter into the consent with some kind of personal integrity. Once we "sign on the dotted line" however, all bets are off. The ride takes us where it will, and the best that we can hope for is that we are good enough, strong enough, wise enough to see it through.

"Change, adjust, adapt." This is the advice I often give my junior high age students who are prone to bristle when the routines shift and things aren't quite the same today as they were yesterday. Relationships evolve because the people who are in those relationships grow and change. It is the nature of being alive. For those of us who choose power exchange relating, that reality is an added challenge. Choosing once, the consent is given, yet change remains a constant and evolution occurs. Growth continues because life continues. To stop growing and changing is to stop being alive.

How then does one who has promised to remain constant do that in a sea of change? How can the focus be maintained when there is not solid ground on which to stand? Can we, should we affirm that of which we do not yet conceive? Can we face without fear an unimagined future?

These are the promises made. This is our bond.

swan