> Whether you take the "d" in bdsm to mean discipline or dominance, either is an activity which can erode the ability of the disciplined or the dominated to freely give consent.
Why?
> That doesn't mean it +must+ have that result, any more than the power differential between a younger and an older person, or a richer and a poorer person, +must+ have a nonconsensual dynamic--just that it +may+ develop.
But is it any likelier to develop in a bdsm dynamic than in a non-bdsm dynamic? I would counter than in a bdsm dynamic where the power issues are dealt with transparently, coercionis less likely to occur.
> What I am saying is that consent can be coerced.
Agreed. But do bdsm activities have a higher probablity of resulting in coerced consent?
> One of the attractive things in theory about bdsm is that it makes power relations explicit.
In reality as well.
> One of the unattractive things about it in fact is the willingness of those who practice it to gloss over the
sometimes unpleasant realities of that power.
And these unpleasant realities are? And how are they overlooked?
Brian