Power

All intimate relationships have internal power dynamics. Many never recognize or acknowlege that reality. To take the power structure and make it clearly manifest can simplify some things; eliminate (or reduce) game playing; remove a range of choices and decisions; define positions, responsibilities and roles.

Over the years, I've discussed power in relationships with lots of different people with a lot of different points of view.

Some of those people have been folks who have plain, old, garden-variety, boy-meets-girl relationships, complete with marriage licensces (or not). They almost always swear to me that they are "equals," and that there are no power dynamics in their relationships. Of course, if the conversations goes on for very long, I'll hear about how someone spends too much, or never arrives on time to appointments, or always gets drunk at family gatherings, or undermines the other in disciplining the children, or collects speeding tickets like they were baseball cards, or... But there are NO power issues.

Poly people who don't do BDSM will often make that same "we're all equals" claim. Of course, if you have more partners, you just mathematically complicate the permutations in the power equation, and it isn't a simple multiplication problem either. Neither should a person be fooled by that ubiquitous and noble sounding claim to openess and honesty that poly folks make ... human animals can be cads when there is sex afoot, and when there is lots of sex afoot the cad factor escalates.

So, WE handle power consciously and deliberately and with intent. All well and good. We talk about trust and contracts and communication and openess and transparency. We at least have some understanding of what it is that we are about.

And we are human. We fuck it up on a regular basis.

We can be caught fussing and arguing continually on how much power is being exchanged / traded / given / taken / forfeited... Whatever! Put three or more of us together and get us started with talk of labels and definitions and dynamics and it won't be long before we are tearing each others' eyes out and pulling hair and scratching over who is doing it "right," and who is more "real."

Left to our own devices for very long, we can't help but get into the cloying sonata to "submission as a gift" and the "cherished property" serenade. I've spent far too much of my life digesting all the words that have been poured out about whether submissives or Dominants have the real power in these relationships and exactly who controls things and what the exact proportions are in each case.

Here's what I think. We are people. We do it the way people do it -- imperfectly, and uniquely to our own tastes. We make a hash of it whenever we get together and do it with each other (which seems to me to be the only sensible way to do it in the first place). Submissive natured folks may have some inherent strength and courage, but we are also needy at very deep levels. Dominant natured people may have some inherent strength and courage as well, but can be arrogant and selfish as often as not. All of us, because we are animals first, work to get our own needs met. Get over it. None of us are the best we maybe could be, and life sucks way more than most of us would like. I don't entirely trust anyone anymore -- not like I used to (I've been lied to too damned often). Most especially I don't trust myself. Oh well. It is still better than the alternative.

I am slave. Those three words define a reality that is not nearly as simple as they appear when they are written. There are complexities to that far beyond what I contemplated in the beginning. Surprise. Good times. Not so good times. Go on.

swan