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humorist-workshop
The Importance of Consent
Razhie,
Thanks for your compassionate and sensitive handling of my question about my girlfriend's erotic fetish. I am so pleased with your insights that I have made you a favorite columnist. With just one question answered, you have more than earned my trust.
I appreciate your kind invitation to ask any follow-up questions. So if I may?
You have alerted me to the issue of consent of others as it relates to her power play and her fetish. My girlfriend Lisa should exercise her fetish and make sure she has not only my consent but that of her friends or any "audience." She will always have my consent as long as she allows me to give her a signal whenever I feel her fetish is unfair or inappropriate. Thank you for that idea!
We have worked out a signal between us, thanks to you. A "play-off word" would not work verbally if she has her hand over my mouth, so we have worked out a nonverbal safe signal. I will tap her backhand with my fingers if I feel her hand should be removed so that I may speak or if I am feeling uncomfortable in the setting. Lisa has agreed to honor my request and remove her hand quickly, always honoring the safe signal. I will in turn tap her (disengaged) hand when I feel it is okay for her to return her hand to my mouth. We both appreciate your suggestion. As you pointed out, I DO NOT want her to stop this erotic behavior for good since we both enjoy it. But Lisa read your comments and has agreed to modify her behavior when necessary.
Razhie, here is my new question--and I ask it seriously and not flippantly. How does Lisa seek the consent and approval of those who might observe her fetish? Does she NEED their verbally express permission to perform her hand-over-mouth quirk? Does she ask them first if they mind? If one person objects, does it preclude her doing as she wishes? Or should she non-verbally gauge reactions around her when she engages in her fetish? If they look or act uncomfortable, should she disengage? What if some seem to approve and others do not seem to?
Part of Lisa's power-play game is to take viewers of her fetish by surprise and hold them hostage by their own helpless reactions. She likes to see them squirm--surprise, embarrassment, discomfort, nervousness, humor, enjoyment, agreement, and helpless inaction. Her control, dominance, and power is strengthened by their insecurity or inability to react or act. Are we saying that if Lisa chooses to engage in her erotic hand-over-mouth fetish publicly that she must accept responsibility for the reactions of all present as well as their approval and consent? Not everyone may approve, so perhaps they have the option of looking away or leaving? Lisa may never have 100 percent consensus in an imperfect world that still says anything goes.
In what ways can Lisa seek consent for her fetish publicly, where she revels most in her power play and the impromptu and unpredictable reactions of others? How can she gauge consent and approval of others? Should she react to verbal cues or nonverbal? And should she concern herself with unanimous consent--especially among friends? Is it wrong for her to engage a private fetish so publicly in the first place?
I appreciate your patience and understanding. I am very intrigued by your wise issue of social consent and what role that would play in Lisa's freedoms of choice and exercise of her fetish.
Thanks again, Razhie--and love always!
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As I said before - I am not an expert. So the following is all opinion, not the rule of law.
I do believe it's inappropriate to engage in fetish behaviour in public. Not thoughts of course. We can't help but have erotic thoughts - some fetishes are incidental and exposure just happens in day to day life. Our fetishes might still attract and arouse us - just like an attractive person standing beside you in line might make you think of sex for a few seconds - but our actions we can control, and I think we should.
For example, I don't think people should wear sex toys under their clothes and go about their daily lives because they get off on the idea that their coworkers don't know that they are there. I think that crosses a line, where another person is made to be intimately involved in your sexual expression and experience without their awareness or consent.
By that standard, you both shouldn’t be doing this in public. (I’m going to point out that I’m speaking to both of you: You are consenting to this that means you both have a responsibility for how you engage with others. It’s not ‘her fetish’ we are talking about anymore when we talk about behaviour in public. It’s both of you in a sex act.) There are a good number of sex writers/philosophers/kinksters who would agree with me on this and there are a whole bunch that would think I’m an unbearable prude and putting ludicrous limits on sexual expression.
I’m guessing you and your girlfriend are of the vein that would find this a little prudish. I don’t think you two should really be doing this in public in the first place, but obviously you can’t be expected to get everyone around you verbally consent. (Unless you go to Fetish Fair or something were everyone has signed a waiver - which you should totally look into by the by!).
So let me attack this from the other angle: What do I think is the absolute LEAST amount of consent you need to receive?
ONE - I think you need to restrict yourselves to private and semi-private events and situations. IE Doing this at a restaurant with friends is fine. Doing it on the public bus or in the grocery store is not. Doing at an event where there are many people who you are meeting for the first time, probably also not.
TWO - I think both of you need to pay very close attention to the non-verbal and indirect hints you are given. Has any of your friends or hers every asked, with a concerned look in their eyes, if you are, ya know, okay with this. Has anyone said they’d love to see you - just you - not your boyfriend/girlfriend. Has someone ever left the room or told other friends that they don’t want to come if you are there. . . If these are people who you want to maintain friendships with then you both need to express that this works for you and confirm that they are cool with being around it. If they aren’t, then the question you are left with as a couple is: So you want to be around them?
THREE - I think you need to stop the moment someone says “Really guys!” or “I’m trying to talk to him!” with anything even a little bit less then complete good humour. You both need to agree to be very liberal about what is interpreted as verbal withdrawal of consent. Among friends, yes, you should aim for unanimous consent, at least in so much as the moment someone expresses verbally that they are not consenting, the behaviour should full stop.
Frankly, I think you are probably both reasonably intelligent people. I don’t think I could, and I’m not going to try, to spell out everything that might be interpreted as ‘non-consent’, and I don’t think you are responsible for everyone’s reactions. However, you are both responsible, most definitely for paying attention to those reactions, and being respectful. Respectful won’t always mean stopping, but it does mean you don’t get to be wilfully ignorant of those around you, just because that is part of where the satisfaction comes from…
Finally, I’d suggest this to you as the possibility of a happy compromise on the issue of consent in public - Keep your mouth shut WITHOUT her hand in front of your mouth. Create another pair of signs she can use for ‘play on’ and ‘play off’ at HER initiation - rather than yours - and when she uses them, stop talking.
From my experience with doms she might actually find it even more satisfying to control you so completely, so subtly. Although it doesn’t completely address my issue (the idea of unaware individuals become part of your sexual act) it does bring the act much closer to the two of you - the two clearly consenting individuals - and avoids involving those around you.
I understand that discomfort and shock of others plays into her enjoyment of her fetish, but it’s really not nice behaviour. Imagine if you had a friend who had took sexual pleasure for seeing people totally grossed out, so they hid photos of mutilated corpses in your menu or iphone in the hopes of seeing your reaction. That would be ‘not nice’.
I think a lot of what you are describing as public behaviour could fall into the ‘not nice’ category, not the ‘horribly immoral’ category. I don’t want to give you a bunch of strict codes about establishing consent among your friends - I’d really just like to think you are both considering this part of the equation now.
Most of your friends are NEVER going to view Lisa and your behaviour with the same intensity they would the image of a mutilated corpse - obviously the severity is totally different - but the principal stands. It’s not illegal. It’s not even especially disrespectful. It’s just not nice.
Thanks for the praise. I really appreciate it. I hope my thoughts are of some use. I certainly realize that there are other ways of viewing the issues around public humiliation and the consent of non-participants, but hopefully my thoughts give you a jumping off point to your own philosophies.
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