Consent is Key

In the BDSM lifestyle we have a saying, Consent is King, if you’re in the life, you’ve probably heard some version of it. The reason for us is quite simple, a Top has power over the bottom. To put it another way the Top passes laws and the bottom obeys. It sounds incredibly simple, but it’s not.

In reality it works just like it is supposed to work in any system of governance, we should have the consent of the governed. All forms of government are supposed to work on that principle be it Monarchies, Democracies or anything else. The idea is supposed to be that no matter the system of governance, if the people don’t consent, eventually they will make you stop. History often bares this out and if it is forced into that situation, more often than not it is bloody.

So, throughout history, power structures have done whatever they could to coerce consent to keep a tyrant in power. Again, we’ve seen this throughout history. The tactics used are the gambit of what we now understand to be abuse, from Gaslighting i.e. Propaganda, to Direct Violence, to reminding you that you asked for this, to telling you everything and everyone else will treat you worse. At this point it has been recognized and the techniques are so cliche as to be trope. You can find them in every post-apocalyptic dystopia, bad romance, etc. etc. etc.

Yet, within the life, I still run into people who swear to me that this is how real S&M is. From outside the community I can almost understand it. We beat, degrade, and hurt our partners regularly. Each coupling and group has its own weird rituals and bizarre practices, no two of which are exactly the same as anyone else’s, so from the outside, from ignorance? No I get it. I know I will spend the rest of my life and career as a writer speaking on such things and fighting those who just will not do even the slightest bit or research or talking to bottoms.

Yet, I hear it on the inside too. Wannabe tyrants who crow about how if you give your bottoms any choice or say then you’re not a real top. They all wind up using the exact same three things to ensure that their bottoms are cut off from others and who manufacture consent. They surround themselves, and our lifestyle with F.O.G.

F.O.G. Stands for Fear, Obligation, and Guilt.

The Fear part seems the easiest to explain, and part of it is. Fear of pain, fear of rejection, fear of withheld attention, fear of being ostracized. That’s the easy part, we can all wrap our heads around that. The part some of us just don’t see is where it gets painful to even look at. Like any other abuser these people love pointing out that their bottom will never get any better, never deserve any better, that everyone else will treat them worse. They have stories of bottoms who have endured much worse, who have been left broken, bleeding, even dead. Then they say “now aren’t you glad I’m nothing like that. I can treat you like that if you want me to.” For these bottoms every moment of every day is that fear even if it has been months since a finger was raised. Worse they fear what will happen if they speak out, talk to others, or leave. After all, they know that real tops all treat their bottoms like this.

Obligation gets a bit trickier. See, all of us came into this life knowing what we were expecting. Slapping, tickling, pain, humiliation, embarrassment. Some people think its these things, some think it’s the sex. For a lot of us it’s just the bonding with people who understand how we feel. As such, most of us are protective of our lifestyle. A base D/s may not have any pain, or sex, or anything other than one or more partners who submit to the rule of one or more other people. It’s all a mutual agreement. The abuser will always be sure to explain that to the victim. “You agreed to this, why are you getting upset? I guess you’re not a real bottom. You signed up for this training, now you want out. Sure, good luck finding anyone else who will take you after this. This is nothing, this isn’t even real training yet.” You made this deal, you can’t leave, isn’t something that just bottoms feel, tops can find themselves there too. Abusers love to tell you that you chose this.

Finally, we have Guilt. “Look at what All I did for you. I bought thousands of dollars’ worth of stuff for you. I gave up X for you. This is how you repay me? I know I hit you, but you pushed me too far. I know I ignored your safe word, but you just got me so hot I couldn’t help myself.” And on and on and on. It’s not their fault, it’s your fault. You’re just ungrateful.

One of the first times I spoke of this was to a fellow Top. We were both going over how things had got so bad with a friend of ours who had bottomed. I had heard of the F.O.G. of abuse years before, but hadn’t really thought about it in our context. After all, it's second nature for us to make them beg, to crawl, to thank us for beating them, forcing them to do the thing they wanted to do, making them do x because they agreed to it. All force play, be it forced feminization/masculinization, con-non-con, forced bi/gay/lesbian, cuckold, or what have you works on that principal after all. All of it. Do x because I told you, or I will beat you, deny you, you agreed to this, I’m doing it for you. If your bottom is a slave, that’s their life.

Talking with them, my brain came up with the best worst way of explaining all of it.

At bases, and yes individually it can get more complicated, but at base there are 3 levels of bottoming. The bottom, the sub, and the slave. Now I have heard and love the coloring book analogy. For those that haven’t heard it, it works like this. The bottom gives us the coloring book, the crayons, and we then color inside the lines, but we color it however we wish within those lines with those colors. Sometimes it’s a soft technique, sometimes scribbles but always follow those basic guidelines.

My brain came up with this.

A bottom scene is you borrowing a car from your friend. You’d better fill up the tank, don’t get a ticket, and return the car pronto. Whatever weird rules your friend lays down, you follow them, or you just don’t borrow the car. It’s their car.

A submissive is leasing the car. Your lease agreement will outline quite clearly what can and can’t be done. Any breaking of the lease nullifies the agreement. Now basic maintenance such as gas (food) parking (shelter) etc. is your responsibility, but things like oil changes, tune-ups, and major maintenance you can take care of by simply bringing the car to the dealer and they will fix it as part of the lease. Or in other words the sub still maintains control over things that are big.

The Slave is you buying the car. That means you get so much more power over what you can and can’t do, but it also means you are much more responsible for its upkeep. What’s more is you’re not going to hit 80 down the highway and just fling it into reverse. More than that, while you can put on lots of aftermarket details like a new engine and spoilers, and pretty much anything else you wish, you still need to pay attention to the damn owner’s manual… or in other words the agreement you made when you took the salve. If you don’t performance will diminish, and you will wind up breaking the car, i.e. the slave.

In other words, it’s still about consent. Yes, they have an ‘obligation’ but that only goes as far as they, not you, wish it. And if you get a lemon (car terms not other terms) then it's just not going to work and you’re better off letting them go. Even when we’re holding them down and making them eat chocolate… because it’s funny, we are still operating on the consent of the governed.

If you aren’t? Congratulations. You’re a tyrant, A.K.A. an abuser.

Stay safe.

https://www.thehotline.org/

https://pro.psychcentral.com/exhausted-woman/2016/12/how-to-come-out-of-the-abuse-fog/

https://www.psychopathfree.com/articles/fear-obligation-and-guilt-fog-after-narcissistic-abuse.368/