On the origin of power in relationships
I don’t usually quote the late social-theorist Hannah Arendt from the pages of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on kink blogs, but when I do it’s highly relevant to the real nature of authority and consent in power-exchange dynamics:
“This capacity to act in concert for a […] purpose is what Arendt calls power. Power needs to be distinguished from strength, force, and violence (CR, 143–55). Unlike strength, it is not the property of an individual, but of a plurality of actors joining together for some common […] purpose. Unlike force, it is not a natural phenomenon but a human creation, the outcome of collective engagement. And unlike violence, it is based not on coercion but on consent and rational persuasion.”
– Hannah Arendt, 4.4 Action, Power, and the Space of Appearance
No matter how Domly or Daddy-ish you are or how Submissive or Little, never forget that the power-exchange kinks under the broad BDSM umbrella ultimately depend on the non-violent, non-coerced, actions taken by all participants.
If you don’t understand this then what you’re doing could be abuse, or it could be codependence, or it could be a miserable mistake, but it’s not kink.
