Charlie Glickman’s recent post about sex-positivity on his blog got me thinking about an issue he touched on, the reasons people consent. He sought in his post to open up a dialogue, and this is my contribution to that dialogue, not as a feminist, sex-positive or otherwise, but as someone looking at it from a purely psychological stance. We all make the choices we do for different reasons. It’s easy enough to say, “I do it because it feels good” and leave it at that. But I, like Glickman, think it’s important to look at the deeper reasons behind our actions, and make fully informed decisions based on the positivity or negativity of our motivations. In other words, we need to ask ourselves “Why does it feel good?” and “Am I harming myself, in the long-run, by doing this?” It’s important to remember that sometimes even the most harmless of actions can be harmful if we do them without considering their implications.

An example of this is casual sex. Two people might enter into the same type of casual sex arrangement for two entirely different reasons. For my purposes, lets say person number one enters into a casual sex arrangement with a handsome acquaintance because xe thinks this acquaintance is attractive, and it seems to xim that it could prove to be a mutually pleasurable agreement because neither of them are looking for long-term commitment at the time, but both of them would like some companionship and sex. Person number two, on the other hand, has been feeling down lately. Xe doesn’t like xemself for some reason or another. Xe thinks that if someone else approves of xim, xe will feel better about xemself, so xe seeks to buy the approval of the acquaintance with sex.

A much more personal example would be to compare my reasons for enjoying D/s to the reasons of another person I’ve discussed these desires with. I personally enjoy submitting to my partner in the bedroom, because it gives me a safe place to regain my equilibrium. For a few hours, I can give complete control to him, and let him make my decisions for me, and all I have to focus on is being in control of myself enough to follow his orders. Having that safe space to de-stress in gives me a feeling of control that I carry with me back into the “real world”, so that I can go right back to making the decisions I need to make in order to function in society. The brief reprieve from making choices for myself is like a “reset” button on my psyche, almost a type of meditation. On the other hand, one of the other people I’ve talked to on the subject told me that she enjoys submitting in the bedroom because she’s only ever had partners who expected her to submit. It was never a controlled thing for her, she didn’t get a safe-word in those relationships, and she couldn’t just tell them she wanted to have non-dynamic sex. It wasn’t a power exchange, they just took the control. She got so used to being the one controlled that she didn’t know what to do with control when she was given it, so she seeks out people who will dominate her.

In other words, it isn’t the action that is healthy or unhealthy in those instances, it’s the motivation behind the act. If a decision is being made with reasonable expectations of the outcome, for healthy reasons, and the action isn’t causing anyone harm, then it is good. If the choice is without one of those standards, then the decision should be rethought.

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