Power Exchange Textbook: Chapter 6

Note: This is part of a Sextbook on Power-Exchange I am in the process of writing. The earlier chapters can be accessed at this tag. It is currently only accessible to my patrons.

.

Chapter 6

Scope of Control

The scope of control of anything determines the limit as well as the direction something can take. For instance, when you run a business, you take on certain liabilities but the scope of the liabilities is determined by the nature of the business and your own appetite for risk. If you run a sole proprietorship, your personal assets become part of the scope by being available for debt-recovery, whereas a limited liability partnership means your personal assets are not subject to recovery of the liabilities of your firm. In much the same way, when it comes to BDSM and power-exchange in specific, there are a lot of spheres of control (as we discussed in the previous chapter) but being open to assuming or relinquishing control within a particular sphere does not automatically mean you would assume/relinquish all control.

Let’s discuss this further using a few examples.

Say, as a submissive, you are open to giving up control to some degree within the sphere of (your) health. Consider a few examples of how you might do that. Say you have a chronic health condition that requires medication, you may be open to some control within that sphere. How does that control manifest? There is a range. It could be a system of accountability, in that you have to inform your partner every day after you take your medication or face some kind of penalty. It could also be in the way that your partner assumes charge of dispensing the medication to you on a daily basis. It could also extend to a degree where your partner decides whether that medicine is the right medicine for you. Within the scope of the same act, there are varying degrees of control. The scope of control helps you determine, in this case, not only how much control you’d want to give up in terms of your health but also the level at which that control manifests and the nature of it. You may be comfortable with being made to report whether you took a pill or not, but may not be comfortable with being accountable in punitive ways for it should you have failed to take it or report it. You may be comfortable with accountability on remembering to take the pill but wish to retain decision-based control on whether the pill needs to be taken by you on that day.

Determining Your Scope of Control.

Instead of thinking of it in terms of partial or total control, think of it in terms of its realm of influences or areas of influence. A lot of times, we become fixated on the idea of total control, whereas in actuality, there are very few relationships within which people actually want that or enact that in ways that are comfortable for all involved. The following are a few factors that can be considered when determining the scope of control for yourself as the submissive or dominant party.

1) Nature of Control

In order to meaningfully discuss the extent to which individuals are comfortable with assuming or relinquishing control, it is vital to delineate the various forms in which control can even be exerted. One may be comfortable with all of these forms of control, or some of them.

- Instructional Control

Instructional control refers to control that is exerted in the form if instruction, orders, commands or direction. It tends to pertain to an activity at hand and exist within a defined period of time.

- Behavioural Control

Control that pertains to how someone would behave either within a role, a situation, a scene or an entire dynamic would be referred to as behavioural control. It is greater in scope than instructional control because it is not just about how to respond or act in the moment, but could extend over a period of time.

- Belief-Based Control

This kind of control is not just about controlling behaviour, but about controlling the root of the behaviour as well, eventually enabling a situation where one can act out of a set of expectations instead of requiring specific instructions for each situation. It may also involve conditioning or training within the confines of a role.

- Decision-Making Control

This type of control bleeds far deeper into the ideological realm than others, and it allows one party to assume control not over situations and roles alone, but life as well. It may be decisions about money or choosing restaurants, or it may be decisions about one’s body or who they date.

- Goal-Based Control

This type of control may be entirely governed by whether or whether not it serves a goal that has been pre-determined. In agreeing to subject yourself to control in order to be more active, actions committed to the end of achieving that goal demanded by the dominant party would define the scope of this kind of control.

2) Appetite for Risk

Another factor that is very important when determining the scope of your control is how much risk you are willing to bear. We tend to think of risk is very physical terms and physical risk is a component but one’s appetite for risk contains a lot more factors. In relinquishing control over a social sphere, for instance, you risk letting another entity determine the direction of your relationship, even if it potentially harms that relationship. In letting another party assume control over your finances or health, you are not just subject to their control but also the limitations of their expertise which may have bearing on your well-being. How much risk are you willing to take? It is good to consider this from a perspective that is not wishful nor addled by how you feel about another person, and instead consider it from the point of view of ramifications. What is the worst that could happen if you do exert or relinquish xyz form of control? Are you willing or able to live with the consequences of it going less than perfectly? It is also helpful to not only think if extreme possibilities that are unlikely to come to pass and think instead with Occam’s Razor as the guiding principle. What is the most obvious or common fallout from something that you wish to understand? How does it apply to you? Are you comfortable with the risk it presents?

3) Parties Influenced

While we tend to think of relationships as very private enterprises that only influence the people who are in the relationship, even though that is not always the truth, there is no greater proof of that than the frequency with which children are affected by the nature of the relationship of their parents, in good ways and bad. It is important to consider the scope of the control in your dynamic by considering how it may influence other people in your life. These people could include your children, other members of your family, other partners, friends, employers and colleagues. This can happen in very simple ways like if you are in a relationship where you relinquish the right to put work before the needs of your dominant partner, your non-availability may have an impact on your colleagues, as they may to cover for you or be obligated to report you. It can also be more complex, wherein giving up your final say in parental relationships may mean that you could actually find yourself in a situation where you acquiesce to doing what is worse for your child because you agreed to comply with the decisions of another. All of which brings me to what is perhaps the most important factor when it comes to determining the scope.

4) Trust Between Parties

We often talk of trust but it is one of those concepts that is so vast, it is overwhelming to even attempt to approach it. Within power exchange trust is often presented as the holy grail, and it is frequently said that it takes a long time to foster. However, in its relation to the scope of control within relationships, let us approach trust from the point of view of determining what actually enables one to allow another to be responsible for their decision making or behaviour.

- Precedent is one factor. When one has demonstrated they will be ethical in their approach to decisions and not only make them from the perspective of whether they serve their needs or ego is a good sign.

- Whether one is proactive and comprehensive in evaluating the realm and extent of their influence and catering to it in advance indicates whether they are seriously and holistically considering the well-being of another party.

- Whether one can be relied upon to offer, accept and incorporate feedback into systems that govern the relationship reinforces whether they are acting in good faith.

- The general environment of the relationship, especially in terms of whether all parties feel safe within it is a good determinant of whether all actors are trustworthy.

- How mistakes have been handled in the relationship builds the bedrock for how much faith one party can put into another.

- Being proactive in taking responsibility for your actions, instead of assigning blame, makes for a more compassionate, empathetic and responsible dynamic.

5) Benign or Consequential Control

In order to determine how one feels about the nature of control, it could be helpful to think about scope in terms of whether you are comfortable with benign or consequential control. Benign control would refer to forms of control that have no overall bearing on one’s life in any substantial way. For instance, kneeling every time you see your partner (unless you have mobility-related issues with your knees) is largely benign. Or, in a financial space, whether you can buy one bar of chocolate today or not is largely benign. Consequential control refers to a form of control that does have more substantive impact on someone’s life. For instance, whether you can ever spend your money on small pleasures like chocolate without permission is a more consequential form of the financial control to which I referred earlier. Some people may be comfortable with only benign control while others may want it be benign within certain spheres and consequential within others.

6) Considering Scope Within The Realm of Time

Some forms of control only last within the moment and are very short term in nature, like telling someone to get on their knees or put their arms above their head. Other forms may have a most lasting framework within which they may exist, such as telling someone that they must always put their hands above their head when asked to position themselves for a particular activity. Extending from that, there are always forms of control that may have something of a permanent effect on someone’s psyche or definition of a role, like training someone to keep their hands over their head at all times until told to put them down.

Some Things To Remember When Determining Scope

- Take it slow if you are unsure. Incremental increase will always make it easier to be more exact when diagnosing the specific point at which you began to have an issue.

- As the dominant party, think long and hard about whether you are actually able to and be present for assuming the amount of responsibility that you agree to take on. It is not just about making the rules and exerting the control, you have to be able to be as available as you expect the submissive party to be in order to enforce the control while holding yourself up to a system of ethics that is comprehensive.

- Don’t determine the extent to which you will dabble in control based on what you think submissives should do. Whether you are good or not is not a factor of how much control you give up but a factor of your relationship itself and how you determine approval within those personally-designed systems.

- When using terms like total, be very clear on what exactly you may mean by that.

- The scope in various spheres does not have to be equal. You could be comfortable assuming or relinquishing a lot of control in one sphere and none at all in another. One does not have to have a bearing on the other.

- Always remember that you are the architects of your dynamic and not the concept of power-exchange. What you want and are comfortable with as individuals or as a couple should always come first.