Power-Exchange: Chapter 2

Note: This is part of a book I am writing, you can access other chapters at the tag Power Exchange Sextbook.

Chapter 2

Understanding The Influence of Social Power Dynamics on Power-Exchange

When I was much younger, specifically young enough not to know how to handle my desires but old enough to have them, my desire for control mainly manifested within the realm of fantasy and these fantasies were dependent on applying the structures of power I saw around me to the construct. So, even though I am pansexual, I thought of dominant partners as men, because those were the people I saw around me as having power. I thought of submission as a coerced method of extracting traditional femininity from me because I saw the social rejection of gender-roles as my power and the only kind I had to yield. I was attracted to parental-figures because that was the fundamental conception of power that has been applied to me then. I exalted the intelligence of my teachers as a trait most desirable in a dominant partner because it felt like I needed to justify the superiority of the other in order to yield to them. Outside of those personalised examples, we can see a lot of this in the representation of power-exchange in pop-culture—the billionaire dominant, the outwardly masculine master, the boss who enslaves their secretary—the re-application of socially-informed power-structures is rampant. It is also rampant within relationships.

A couple I used to know had a relationship that existed within fairly patriarchal controls. He worked and she didn’t because he believed that women should look after the house and children. He demanded she be nicely dressed and pretty at all times. She did all the cooking, cleaning and tended to him constantly. First of all, let me be very clear, if you have a relationship like that and you chose it, I am not criticising your choices, you have the right to them, I am merely bringing your attention to a recurring pattern that exists in relationships where the choices of one party are undermined. This couple decided they wanted to try power-exchange, and with the exception of the addition of some latex and leashes, their relationship looked exactly the same pre-power exchange and after it, now he was just able to call all of her domestic labour, service. Two things that stand out to me about this are:

- You cannot give up power you didn’t have. If as an individual, outside of power-exchange, you cannot make (by yourself) the decision to go to the club with your friends or not do the dishes, you’re not actually giving up any control within the power-exchange because you never had it. This doesn’t necessarily mean an individual usurped that power, sometimes social forces do that to us and it takes a while before we even realise it.

- If, as the top, you draw your authority from the power extended to you by privilege or society alone, then the fact that someone yielded power to you has no meaning because you already assumed you had that power (over all the people you think fall into that demographic).

The remarkable thing about power-exchange is that it allows you the space to build your own structures of control, you do not have to be someone else for it, it can be something else for you. It is extremely adaptable, but it is also extremely volatile which means it also requires that all participants be mindful of how social-dynamics influence that power. Some of the ways social-power dynamics may influence relationships are:

- The politics of gender.

- The influence of an age-gap.

- The privilege of race or caste.

- The disparity of income or wealth.

- The impact of regionality and social exposure.

There are many more factors but those serve as a good guide to explore where the roots of your desire for power or yielding it may lie. The point is to understand your roots and influences, especially since, in my experience, the most sustainable power-exchange dynamics in which I have been, were the ones where there were no inherent reasons for why I wanted my partner to have control expect that I enjoyed their exercising of it and vice versa, and getting to that place meant being willing to unpack how much my understanding of power was rooted in extant politics. Please understand that I do not mean anything is right or wrong on the face of it, nor do I mean that disparity in gender-privilege or age necessarily means people shouldn’t be together or it is compulsorily exploitative if they are. I am advocating for the lack of delusion within power-structures because I see a lot of relationships turn toxic and collapse due to that delusion.

The awareness of influences enables one not only to responsibly reapply social power-structures but also to actively participate in mitigating harm that one may unknowingly cause due to their privilege. The willingness to do so goes a long way in engendering the trust it takes to yield control. So, for me, the litmus test isn’t so much whether you expect me to do something that is expected of my gender, like mop the living room, it is whether you are willing to admit that viewing cleaning as a loss of power (ie: labour as servitude, not contribution) has gendered roots and evaluate whether it does for you (and extra bonus points if you did it already). It’s not that I don’t want to mop the living room, I really do enjoy servitude, it’s that I don’t want to mop yours if you believe I should have to do that, with or without the power-exchange, by virtue of my gender/race/income/etc. I also don’t want to do it if you believe you should never have to do it, I genuinely understand if you can’t or even if you choose not to because there are other options, I cannot excuse I should not have to. I never would have learnt any of this and started to choose better partners if I hadn’t unpacked social control.

I know there is a general resistance to the idea of exploring the connection of BDSM with feminism, sexism, trauma, race, gender etc, and we’ve always stood resilient in the declaration that it is completely exempt from those things because we do this by choice and on a fundamental level, I agree. There is, in most people who opt for power-exchange, an individualized desire for power or losing it that is frequently connected with their sexual signatures, but all of that emerged within the experience and language of society. Our sexual narratives rarely limit themselves to procreation, they all borrow association from the social narrative. In rushing to defensively declare that we are post-influence, we actually diminish the seriousness of considering our choices. There is nothing wrong about choosing to explore the realm of power, sexually or not, but it’s a bit pre-mature to declare you’ve made a free choice if you haven’t considered all the factors that influence that choice.

Ultimately, that is the answer, it’s as succinct and simple as BDSM is not abuse because I choose it, the error is not in the statement, it’s in the fact that we consider it simple. Choosing power-exchange does not inherently rid you of your social influences, it gives you the opportunity to start truly unpacking them.

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Note: This is part of a book, I am posting it here by chapter.