Joanna, that looks to me like academic hair splitting. "Power" has been used more like a label or invective rather than an analytically meaningful concept. One of my main problems with this concept is that it denotes a potential as well as empirical reality - and that mix alawys creates problems. I would rather talk about: - "capacity" to denote the possession of necessary resources to pursue a certain course of action - "disposition" to denote the willingness or propensity to pursue a certain course of action (which can be imputed or demonstrated) - "coercion" to denote the capacity or disposition to overecome opposition to a certain course of action - "authority" to denote the perceived legitimacy to pursue a certain course of action by certain types of actors - "feedback" to denote the type and magnitude of effects of a certain type of action or interaction on the actor and his/her capacity, disposition, and authority
These are different aspects of human interaction that are all confounded in the notion of power. For that reason, the concept of power often obfuscates more than it can explain. What is more, it has been often used as a claim in a political discourse, to counterbalance the official postion that almost always claims legitimacy. In this context, the notion of "power" takes yet another meaning that can be summarized as "the social reality is not as consensula as the authorities claim."
Another thing - in B/D relationships, power and its asymmetrical distribution are a desirable thing. Would you say that such relationships are inconsistent with "love" ? Wojtek