quote:

For me, just removing the word 'consent' has been quite thought provoking 

quote:

ORIGINAL: adaddysgirl

And a little secret....when i look at KoM's pic, i just can't believe he actually kicks or punches anybody.  He just looks too sweet  [sm=lol.gif][sm=lol.gif][sm=lol.gif][sm=lol.gif]

quote:

ORIGINAL: SusanofO

Well, I found my legal dictionary - there are other legal mumbo-jumbo defintions, but the one that most applies (I think) is this one below (yes, I arbitrarily edited my selection re the word "consent", because the info. goes on for pages and pages). Does that mean by considering this definition below you might not be "fully informed"? You decide (hehe) Anyway - it says:

Informed Consent - Consent given after recieiving sufficient information about the nature, costs, risks and benefits about a proposed course of action to make an intelligent decision. In the absence of such information, one's "consent" may not be legally valid.

A lot of this has to do with being a mentally capable adult (as opposed to a child/minor or someone mentally incapable of understanding what they are getting into it).  In a nutshell, it is mainly based on one understanding the possible consequences of what you are consenting to.  And legally, if you are not provided with enough information to make such a decision, then the consent might not be valid in a court of law (and that all would be for the judge to decide).  It is pretty much designed to protect innocent people against the less scrupulous....so to speak.  (Think of where someone might deceive to get you to agree to some financial scam.  If they are not honest in their presentation of the possible risks, you have not been correctly informed, therefore your consent to such a scam may not hold up in court and will nullify the entire agreement.)

Intent - A state of mind in which one either desires to achieve a certain results by one's conduct (even if the result is not likely to occur). Hmmm. Then it goes on to say...Or knows that result is practically certain to occur (even if that is not what is desired). Double Hmmm hmmm.

This is a bit easier....lol.  An example would be best.  If i throw a bomb in a building with the intent of killing everyone inside, but i only kill 5 people because it was so small it couldn't possibly kill everyone, i can still be charged with the intent to kill more, providing that can be proved of course (and that's what lawyers are for....lol).
 
You see it all the time.  i come after you with a gun, shoot you but only hit your leg.  i could be charged with intent to murder, again, if it could be somehow proved that i was indeed out to kill you.  Maybe i meant to shoot you in the head but am a poor shot (and i know that) so i hit your leg.  A lawyer will obviously say i had no intent to kill you since i just hit you in the leg....but a good DA will try to prove you were aiming elsewhere to actually kill.  Law....not so easy!  [8|]
 
In the second citing, it is more when someone says 'yes, i knew that could happen, but i didn't mean it to!'   The 'i didn't mean it to' does not negate intent.....not in the eyes of the law anyway.
 
Well, sorry i went on so much here but actually, if i weren't damn near brain dead right now....i'd probably say more......lol
 
And Susan, how you want to apply this to bdsm abuse....well, you're going to have to figure that one out.  i can't even think about that right now  [:D]
 
DG

quote:

ORIGINAL: nikaa

In the end only I can judge if someone is being abusive to me, or if it is something else. 
 

quote:

ORIGINAL: mistoferin

quote:

ORIGINAL: catize
So yes, for me, consent is the bottom line. If someone tells me they are content with what they have agreed to, that they have no doubt that this is right; it is not my place to tell them otherwise. 

That is a good way to define it but...it only stands when you are dealing with mentally healthy people who have made that decision to consent based upon full knowledge and understanding of the risks involved. Unfortunately though, there are many other forms of "consent". As some here have mentioned, women who stay in abusive relationships are implying consent simply by staying. There are a myriad of reasons why they stay...but that type of consent is the result of coercion and fear. There are many people who have lives that have left them with such poor self esteem that they can no longer make healthy decisions regarding consent. There are many people whose desperation leads them to consent. There are many people who give consent because they are naive and don't understand what that consent implies. So in my mind, we can not say that the word consent is all encompassing and nullifies the possibility for abuse.

quote:

ORIGINAL: mistoferin

theRose4u's words actually moved me to tears because I have been where she has been. I understand her perspective better than I ever wished I would. I have held out my hand only to have it come back empty or full of justifications, qualifications or excuses dripping in denial. I have held their broken bodies and looked into the hollow eyes of their children. I have been the one to break horrible news to their families....words that no mother should ever have to hear about their child. I have wiped their tears and listened to their stories. I have advocated for them, fought for them, gone to court for them......and sometimes I have attended their funerals. I am forever haunted by their words and their faces.

I wish that I could somehow give the understanding that I received in my many years as a Domestic Violence counselor to others. If I could they would never again have to ask or try to define where that line of abuse is....they would know. They would never again have to question or wonder how a person winds up on that road....they would know. They would never again have to ask why....they would know. And they would never again get up on a message board soap box and tell others that it is acceptable or that it is something that should be endured because of one's position....for they would know that their words carry a heavy responsibility and that the possibility exists that those words may fall upon the ears of someone who is in a bad place but is caught up in that cycle of excuses, justifications, qualifications and denial....just hoping to hang on long enough to find something to cling on to and lo and behold, here it is........so and so said it's ok.

It is NEVER ok for someone to physically assault you as a means of working out their rage and anger. If you want to play hard...play hard. I certainly do. I love play that consists of kicking, punching, takedowns and the like. But if someone comes at you kicking and punching because they are pissed off at you, the cashier at Wendy's or the price of gas....they have just crossed that line.

quote:

ORIGINAL: SusanofO

Thanks daddysprop! I appreciated the explanation(s).

- Susan

quote:

ORIGINAL: theRose4U

These words touched me deeply. I always knew we had something in common, I just with all my heart wish it was something else like basket weaving. I've learned hard lessons about free will in recent years. There are days that I wish I could text my experiences into other's heads so that they don't have to suffer or learn things the way that I have. The sad part to all human programming is free will. People can know deep down that something's wrong or harmful but until they accept that it's wrong on a conscious level there's nothing that you can do.
This is the same sad reason that sends advocacy clients home to their abuser...they literally can't process the reality that they didn't do anything to provoke the attack. "Oh he didn't mean it", "I shouldn't have upset him". "I should have made the kids be quiet", "He just had a bad day and needed to vent", "I'm just a slave and have no choices". If you're lucky they don't give up the addresses of safe houses, tell who and how they contacted the underground railroad, or where they were sent for relocation. In a perfect world they are single and alone with no one else that will mourn for them. Most don't consider that their parents, children or siblings will suffer for years while a murder case winds through the courts. In a perfect world it's not the innocents that are harmed or buried. In a perfect world they get that their job is to above all protect their children from harm. In a perfect world they wake up and see that daddy hitting mommy because he's mad turns their children into the the ext generation of victims.

quote:

ORIGINAL: adaddysgirl
The people here are not talking about an abused vanilla wife who ends up in the hospital...or dead. 

quote:

Remember when you were a little kid (if you have siblings and ever fought with them) when this may have happened: Your mom walked into the room just as you were hitting your little sister (or brother), and she screamed: "Mom! She(he) hit me! Look!!"

What your mom never saw, of course, was the half hour of name-calling and teasing of you by your sister (or brother) leading up to that (you thought) well-deserved punch to your sister ( or brother)... and so I agree that none of the "whys" of these conclusions people may draw about why or why not something is abusive may, in fact, be always accurate for similar reasons. Or, due to just plain mis-communication.

quote:

ORIGINAL: adaddysgirl
Hmmm....it's kind of interesting how you just threw  in the  'i am just a slave and have no choices'  with the rest of your abuse references, isn't it Rose?   You can sit here and describe the saddest situations you have come across with abused children and mothers til you are blue in the face.  And you can try to liken them to the D/s dynamic that is being discussed in this thread....and i am most certain you will gain little sympathy for your cause...nor the ridiculous comparison between the two. 
 
i worked for welfare for 12 years.  i have seen the dirt poor, abused women, abused kids.  This is no where near comparable to what we are talking about here....yet you try to make it so.  Why is that?
 
i also worked with the mentally ill for a few years....most of whom, as adults, had been abused as children.  No one can dispute the sorrow of these situations.  But once again....just try to grasp that we are not talking about anything similar to that here. 
 
Perhaps you could start a thread on 'the abuse of women' or something like that and gather similar views to yours.....and leave this one to those who are talking about something quite different than these poor abused women in abusive relationships who can't leave, feel they deserve the abuse, blame themselves....etc, etc, etc.
 
So whadaya say?
 
DG

quote:

I will use an example that you have discussed several times….kicking and punching.  You not only consent to it, but if I recall correctly, you have requested that it be done to you.  My body cringes and my mind recoils at the very thought.  If master kicked or punched me, it would be without my consent and I would say that he had abused me. 

quote:

ORIGINAL: kyraofMists
My understanding of what you wrote is that a person consents to what they enjoy, so then giving consent would mean that the action is not abusive.  Is this accurate?

quote:

ORIGINAL: mistoferin

quote:

ORIGINAL: adaddysgirl
The people here are not talking about an abused vanilla wife who ends up in the hospital...or dead. 

Then I guess I really am not getting it because I was under the impression that we were talking about abuse and whether or not consent has relevance. I don't differentiate between vanilla housewives and lifestyle people when it comes to abuse. Maybe that is because I have a clear cut image of what abuse is and it relates far more to the lasting results than the causes or immediate actions. I don't believe that a slap or a kick or a punch is what defines abuse.

kyra asked a question of the people here.....the non-vanillas....the kinksters.  i am most certain that if she posted the very same post on some vanilla board somewhere, she would have met with a lot of the reaction you have engaged in. 

But please, are you trying to say that because we are involved in a kinky lifestyle that there are no people here who are being abused?

No, that is not what i am saying. 

People who may have given consent for any one of the reasons that I described? If that is the case, I believe you need to take a closer look around for I have found many people in this lifestyle who have suffered at the hands of an abuser who was all too willing to justify it by the "codes" of this "lifestyle", and I have found many a victim who couldn't even comprehend that they were one because they thought that it was just something they had to tolerate to be considered a member or because some "Dom" told them that this is the way it's supposed to be and because of their chosen position they have to accept it.  

As a matter of fact, you just made me realize the other thread that this pertained to (i had been trying to figure it out all along).  It was about the sub whose dom had rage.....and violently broke things....and she was wondering how she could help him (more or less).  i think everyone on there was basically saying the same thing.  She can't fix him.  He needs help.  She will be the next one he lashes out at.....etc. 
 
i don't think anyone would disagree that people in the lifestyle can be abused....particularly at the hands of the 'wrong' partner.  Again though, the people who responded here were those in relationships where they trusted their partners, where they felt relatively safe, and where they were saying that although he could cross a limit and become abusive, not one said their partner has.  So why do you continue to try to push the point that a sub/slave who ends up feeling fulfilled (on some level)  when her partner comes home and beats on her because he got pissed off at the cashier at Wendy's is the same as a vanilla guy who comes home and beats his wife for the same reason?  It is not the same thing.  Can't you see that?
 
DG

quote:

ORIGINAL: mistoferin

ummmm.....this thread was an offshoot of another thread where a slave said that her Master has the right to physically abuse her and take out his anger on her body in violent ways....and she has no choice because she is a slave...and because it is what she deserves in her position....so I don't think Rose just "threw" it in there for good measure.