Negotiations and Consent, why do we need them?

The best way I can explain the importance of negotiations and their impact on consent, is to give sample scenarios. All scenarios are actual situations that I have heard about having happened. ALL names have been changed to protect privacy. (Sorry, I was watching the original Power Rangers while typing this. Names are not meant to reflect on personality of any characters.)

Tommy meets Trini and they start dating. She goes to give him a blow job and he puts his hand on the back of her head forcing more of himself into her mouth. She starts to gag and as a result doesn’t like it. They have not discussed any form of power play, D/S, or even really anything fetish related. Trini is now refusing to give blow jobs as she doesn’t like the control he asserted.

What is wrong with this picture? Maybe he wanted to make her gag, but did she want that also? Obviously not. Was her consent violated? Not really, but at the same time it could have been. What would have happened if she had tried to stop and he refused to let her, it would have transitioned into rape at that point.

Years have gone by and Trini is now dating an older guy, Zack. They have discussed that she is a switch and have agreed that she would not undergo submissive training as he wants to “nurture” her Dom side. One day, she is in sub mode and he decides to start trying to slut train her. He does not ask her if she is ok with this, nor does he tell her. He just goes ahead and does it, forcing her to decide between undergoing the training she isn’t aware of or not getting laid. She decides that she will just go along with what he wants her to say this once, only to find him continuing to do it. It actually breaks her mentally to where she feels dirty and like she wants to scrub her skin till it falls off.

Was what he did ok? Clearly not as she reacted as if she had been raped. Had he asked her and she said she was not ok with it, and he done it anyway you would be screaming that it was a violation of her consent.

Trini has moved on and is now with Billy. Billy is more experienced in certain areas, while Trini is in other areas. They sit down and discuss what they are into, what their limits are, what they would like to explore and try together. He becomes curious about forced orgasms and talks to her about it. She expresses her concerns and fears with it, and they decide to start out slow and ease into it. Over time they try different things with it, and work their way up to the Hitachi. She feels like the Hitachi is too strong for her and tells him as much. They re-negotiate forced orgasms and her limits with them and go back to what they both enjoy.

Here we have an example of negotiation done well. All parties are aware of what is going on, the potential limits, the possible problems, and agree to proceed accordingly. When an issue comes up, negotiations are revisited and changes are made where needed. Nobody feels violated, hurt, abused, or damaged in any way.

As you can see, negotiations can create a HUGE impact on consent and what consists of a violation. Consent is a core principle for any healthy relationship, be it vanilla or BDSM, as without it it can break down trust which is so very important.There is a lot more that you should consider and discuss during negotiations depended on your exact situation. You can find more details about negotiations in my post about it here.

#beginner #education #fetish #scenario