What is Consent?

By Mistress Michelle Peters

To consent is merely to agree or accede, and when we say "safe, sane, consensual" we obviously mean more than that. "Fully consensual" doesn't make it much clearer. I think that when we say "consent" we mean "the informed and voluntary agreement of a competent person".

So now our semantic circus moves on to defining "voluntary" and "competent" (oh, when will it ever end?). "Competent" means above the age of majority (widely accepted to be 18), not incapacitated by injury or intoxication, not suffering from mental handicaps, and not suffering from any emotional handicaps that prevent one from making sound judgments. The last three are vague and subjective, the last extremely so, making it difficult to say definitively when a person is incompetent, but we start with the assumption that they are competent, and only decide someone is incompetent when there is very strong evidence to that effect. Note that while we should, if there is a "reasonable doubt" in our minds about a person's competence, decide to err on the side of dignity (for it is a very serious thing to deny someone's competence, and because there are few of us who could prove we were sane if we needed to, so it's in all of our interest to require that we be proven insane before someone can act against us). However, it is a purely personal prerogative to choose who one will play with, so if there is any doubt about a person's competence, it is legitimate and proper for one to opt not to play with that person. So how does this position differ from Even Steven's? For me, the default assumption, made in deference to each person's dignity and in the hope that others will offer me the same courtesy, is that a person is competent, and I will proceed on that assumption until given evidence to the contrary, while it is Even Steven's position that the default assumption should be that the person is not competent.

"Voluntary" is harder to define. Part of the difficulty is that to say something is voluntary is to say that one chose it, that one had the option to not choose it, or to choose something else, but that does not mean one had a viable option. To use a line from a movie (and ES, I do not take my worldview from the cinema, I just steal from it lines, such as "Deserve's got nothing to do with it", that reflect my worldview), you can choose what you want, but you can't want what you want. I'm one of those rare sadists in ASB. I seldom indulge my desires outside of art (hey, lousy writing is still art ) because they are difficult to indulge in a way that is respectful of other people, and as I demand respect from people I am going to offer respect to them, but they are part of what I am, and I can no more choose not to be a sadist than I could choose to be a Bedouin.

Strictly speaking, I have the option to choose to be something different, to spend my existence at war with myself. But when I say that I believe in the principle of "do no harm (that you can reasonably and honorably avoid doing)", I include not harming myself.

Since part of my definition of doing harm is "to do something that reduces one's ability to enjoy life", to chose to be at war with myself would do me harm and is therefore not an ethical choice. So I cannot ethically choose not to be a sadist, I can only choose to live as a sadist in ways that do not violate my ethical system. It is the great misfortune of the readers of ASB that tormenting them by writing either long, boring pseudo-philosophical articles with no BDSM content or fiction that may in every sense of the word be said to be sadistic does not violate my ethical system.

I had no viable option not to be a sadist. Many submissives had no viable option to choose not to be submissive. Those people in need of love or attention or who suffer from low self-esteem, the one's that we are said to be searching for so that we might exploit them, are, ironically, among those who do have other options, though they may not realize it, and I would agree that if one comes to realize that a person is involved in BDSM for those reasons, they should offer them what help they can to make them aware that they have other options, and to help them overcome those problems, because I do want to know, should I choose to play with a person, that they have chosen BDSM after careful consideration of all the options that were available to them. However, we must be realistic about how much we can help another person, and remember that the fact a person could benefit from our help does not mean that we are entitled to violate their rights in order to help them. We should also recall that when a person has found a way to deal with their problems, even one that is not optimal, it may not be a kindness to take that away from them before we have provided them with another means.

The issue of manufactured consent, and duress, should be considered.

I have to say that I see nothing wrong with manufactured consent (sometimes known as seduction) if the consent was manufactured without falsehoods or threats and without taking advantage of any of the above described conditions that would bring someone's competence into question. As for duress, anytime a penalty will be inflicted by another if one makes a decision the other objects to, that is duress, and it makes the decision nonconsensual. As in some cases a person's displeasure may qualify as a penalty, we should always make it clear that however much we may wish to do something, our displeasure will never be with the person who finds that they cannot do something, or simply do not want to do it. However, when a person loves another and wants to please them, even by doing those things that are not themselves pleasurable to the person but that do please his or her beloved, that is an internal motivation, not duress, which is externally applied. For example, the person who wants his lover to be happy, and engages in sex when she needs it even when intercourse is not something he then desires, is not doing something he does not want, he is giving his beloved what she needs, and attending to the welfare of his beloved is something that he does want to do, and to act in such a way is not to act under duress.

Which brings us to the issue of love. There is overwhelming evidence that love is a disability, one that blurs perceptions and clouds judgment and indisputably renders people incompetent. According to my standards love should disqualify one from consenting to BDSM play, and since I feel the same standards should also apply to the consent to any sexual activity, this has the quite intriguing effect of barring sex between lovers. There is no logical way around this problem, so I am following the general practice of most human societies in saying that an exception shall be made for love. Yes, love is madness, but bring on the madness. Love is a socially sanctioned lunacy, a lawful intoxication, and while no claim of diminished capacity due to the intoxication of love will be admitted in any court, decisions made while under the influence of love shall not be deemed invalid because of that influence.

So an "informed and voluntary agreement of a competent person" means that a person, presumed competent in the absence of evidence to the contrary, knowing what options they possess, and possessing a reasonable understanding* of what those options mean, and free from the threat of penalty should they make a choice that displeases another, has agreed to something. This is what I mean when I use the term "consent" in reference to sexual activities or to BDSM, and how I interpret the term when I see it used, without any further description, in ASB.

I'm not leaving open the charge that someone won't know all there is to know about BDSM and is therefore not "informed"; to demand absolute safety and omniscience before one makes a choice is a formula for paralysis, as they are unattainable; one must use the "reasonable" qualifier on these points.

Do BDSM players always live up to these standards? No, we do not.

When someone can show me one large group that does perfectly adhere to its ethical code, I'll consider whether BDSM players are less moral than other people because violations of BDSM ethics sometimes occur.