Yes, I Fucking Consent!

I read this today:

Is it caveat emptor? “let the buyer beware.”

A friend just replied to an entry of mine, and mentioned that she doesn’t feel that informed consent exists. The concept of informed consent is a cornerstone of this lifestyle, and to shake that is to shake us all.

She might be right.

You don’t consent to be injured, but injuries happen. You don’t consent to play that evolves, on the fly, beyond the consent you originally gave, yet it does. You don’t consent to dominate, submit, or what-have-you, knowing the full extent of what those concepts mean to you… but we do act as if we have, until shit hits the fan.

And he makes some valid points:

You don’t consent to be injured, but injuries happen.

You don’t consent to play that evolves, on the fly, beyond the consent you originally gave, yet it does.

In the vanilla world, we don’t consent to our spouses, lovers, friends, and family using us as targets for their sadness.

Do you consent to have feelings about what we do that might be hurtful to you in the future?

I consent to all of that. It is life. And life is meant to be fucking lived. And I talk to my partners about it, and they consent. Because I talk about everything.

EVERYTHING.

And I am very clear, upfront, and honest… we will get hurt, we will stumble, we will make mistakes, we will be afraid, and in pain, and frustrated, and angry, and sorrowful, and we may fail.

And if we fail, my partners consent to fail spectacularly with me, with LOTS of pain and heartache, because we played that hard and loved that much.

Fuck yes, I consent.

So, if you wonder if other people consent, like he does in his writing, then in my experience, the best thing to do is ask them.

Ask them.

Ask them over and over, time after time, in new words and ways.

And then you will know.