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ORIGINAL: leadership527

In line with my command to peonforher, I thought I'd get some slashey-speak going on in my title *chuckles*

Rather than derail the whole "newbie sub" thread, I thought I'd pull this into it's own thread since it's a topic which has been very interesting to me recently.
This is a simple question. If you are in a relationship that involves a D/s dynamic, do you believe that you ever consented? Please try to avoid the whole "consent/non-consent" thing. I want to know plain and simple, did you have a choice? Do you now? Why or why not?

For Carol and I, this is a bit muddy since we started vanilla. I believe Carol chose me as a mate. She did so for whatever reasons seemed good and appropriate to her (I'm personally assuming it was my lightning intellect and stunning good looks). Beyond that, however, it is her nature to be "the perfect mate" for whoever it is that she's attached to. Inescapably, when it became clear that I wanted a slave, then slave she became.... no choice or consent involved. It is certainly true that given sufficient provocation (the "Jeff becomes a dumbass" clause in our non-existent contract) she would choose to not simply stop being my slave, but divorce me. But that'd take a LOT of provocation at this point. But what she cannot choose to be is other than she is... the perfect mate of whoever it is she's mated to. All of which calls into question the sacred cow of "between consenting adults" or "safe, sane, and consensual".

So what about you? Any of you subs/slaves wanna dig deep and tell me how you see this issue?

quote:

ORIGINAL: leadership527

In line with my command to peonforher, I thought I'd get some slashey-speak going on in my title *chuckles*

Rather than derail the whole "newbie sub" thread, I thought I'd pull this into it's own thread since it's a topic which has been very interesting to me recently.
This is a simple question. If you are in a relationship that involves a D/s dynamic, do you believe that you ever consented? Please try to avoid the whole "consent/non-consent" thing. I want to know plain and simple, did you have a choice? Do you now? Why or why not?

For Carol and I, this is a bit muddy since we started vanilla. I believe Carol chose me as a mate. She did so for whatever reasons seemed good and appropriate to her (I'm personally assuming it was my lightning intellect and stunning good looks). Beyond that, however, it is her nature to be "the perfect mate" for whoever it is that she's attached to. Inescapably, when it became clear that I wanted a slave, then slave she became.... no choice or consent involved. It is certainly true that given sufficient provocation (the "Jeff becomes a dumbass" clause in our non-existent contract) she would choose to not simply stop being my slave, but divorce me. But that'd take a LOT of provocation at this point. But what she cannot choose to be is other than she is... the perfect mate of whoever it is she's mated to. All of which calls into question the sacred cow of "between consenting adults" or "safe, sane, and consensual".

So what about you? Any of you subs/slaves wanna dig deep and tell me how you see this issue?

quote:

ORIGINAL: leadership527

The Bait and Switch
OK, so given how our two personalities are at their very core, it's easy to see how my will is going to trump hers... it happens without any real conscious effort. in fact, I have to go to great lengths to make sure it doesn't happen when it shouldn't. So perhaps before we were married and we were in intimate contact, one might reasonably say she had significant choice. But we married vanilla. Later, when I figured out I wanted a slave, it was kind of a day late and a dollar short for her to be choosing things.

So given that whole setup, I find it a bit unreasonable to say that she "consented" to be my slave. Sure, given enough provocation, she'd say "fuck you". There'll be no cliff jumping here. But within the normal and expectable realm of day to day life... it's pretty fair to say "I wanted a slave and her very nature drove her to being that without any real opportunity to choose anything different.

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ORIGINAL: lally2
i think that with you guys the trust and faith in youre relationship was already very strong, in a way, what you did was encorporate youre personality traits into Ds as an extension of what you already had between you. what ive identified with what i did in the past is that i consented according to what i had in my head, not necessarily what they had in theirs.  youre deep knowledge of each other bypassed the consent issue in a way, it was moot.  carol consented because she loves you, wishes for you to be fulfilled and it fulfilled that part of her that is inherently submissive anyway.

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in this new relationship of mine i have completely consented and i feel very strong about it. He has changed or is changing my entire concept of what Dominance is and because it fits what i instinctively knew but never found i feel like all the jigsaw pieces are finally making a picture i can relate to. in a funny way the connection i feel with my big Bear  feels almost like its always been there because of what he says, feels, thinks, expresses himself my recognition of Him almost bypasses the need for consent - in a way its almost moot.

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ORIGINAL: mstrjx
I think part of the dilemma of this thread (if some people find there is one) is that we all come looking at this from the same perspective that brought us here. So, in a sense, the choir is being preached to. I've been AWOL for a few years from the boards so if I missed the story about how you (and your wife) were vanilla until one fateful day you woke up and said to yourself 'Hey, I want a slave. Oh, lookit, there might be one sleeping next to me', I really regret it. I bet that trumps most of the ways that we all found ourselves here, myself included.

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But taking your approach, whether you discovered it far after the fact or not, isn't this the equivalent of someone (like ourselves) knowing full well who it is that we are and need out of a relationship, going out and recruiting someone completely vanilla and then slowly (or not) introducing them to kink or obedience or what have you, but keep that person in the dark as far as knowing what they are subscribing to. No munches, no real overt BDSM trappings (playrooms and the like), no BDSM porn lying about. Making it seem as if the relationship is evolving into that direction when it was all part of the 'grand plan'.

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ORIGINAL: leadership527

For us it isn't quite that way. Consider that what I have told her is that what I think is right actually IS right. Not only can I get her to obey, but I can get her to agree. Of course there are limits to that... as I noted above, there'll be no cliff jumping or limb chopping any time soon. But if I want Carol to think a certain way, feel a certain way, or view the world in a certain way, then I tell her and she makes it happen.... whether or not that way was significantly different than how she used to see things.

(haha! i said "sheep" instead of "ship!" wonder what naughty places my mind is...)

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ORIGINAL: leadership527

*nods* I think those things all wrap together daddysprop. Fundamentally, I am not a sadist and I love Carol. That means I don't want to cause her harm, physical or emotional. So, to use a specific example...

Let's suppose that I want Carol to have sex with another man. In her default state, that'd be emotionally harmful to her and I have no interest in that. Yet, I do want absolute control. So the answer is, "change her default state so that it is not harmful, then give the command". That thought train is how I arrived at the need to be able to control her inside & out. I would be personally unwilling to wield the authority I desired to have without the internal control also. Carol, being Carol, submits to that just like any sort of external action.

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ORIGINAL: leadership527

And by the way, I didn't mean to imply your Daddy didn't love you... I know better.

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If you are in a relationship that involves a D/s dynamic, do you believe that you ever consented?

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I want to know plain and simple, did you have a choice?

quote:

ORIGINAL: leadership527

This is a simple question. If you are in a relationship that involves a D/s dynamic, do you believe that you ever consented? Please try to avoid the whole "consent/non-consent" thing. I want to know plain and simple, did you have a choice? Do you now? Why or why not?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Lucienne

I don't know if my example proves or disproves your point... but I was in a relationship for (I can't admit how long, we'll just leave it at 3+ years) awhile that wasn't particularly kinky sexually but had a strong D/s theme, even though I wouldn't have known to call it that at the time. In my experience, I resigned. I indulged. And I passive-aggressively fought back. To further muddy the waters, I'm tempted to say that I consented but I did not choose. This is the way he was. I was treated like a highly valued possession and I had numerous ways of coping with/denying that fact. But I loved him, so I did what I needed to do to get by. Separating myself from him was very difficult because I'd come to accept as normal a degree of observation, if not entirely control, and by that point I didn't need him to speak to know what his response was to his observation. He's still in my head. Less so, but more than he has any right to be. It's been two years. I never chose that. But I did consent. Does that make a damn bit of sense?

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I want to know plain and simple, did you have a choice? Do you now? Why or why not?

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ORIGINAL: leadership527
.I think you and Bear are lucky folks. I'll go ahead and offer a piece of unsolicited advice (cause we all know how much unsolicited advice is appreciated *chuckles*). Go slow and don't mess it up.