More on Consent

Kadi emailed me her responses to my post yesterday, and included the paragraph:

I think the thing about this is possibly that while the people you've
tied (who didn't kink on rope) knew that you did, they possibly didn't
mentally consider this a sexual act because they couldn't frame it
that way, while they intellectual knew you did they were discounting
the sexuality of the act I suspect and hence just not considering that
they would be involved in something sexual.

Yes!  And also not considering that it could be sexual in a power exchange way, which meant that (because I felt unable to explain it to them in a way that meant they would grok that) I had to be especially careful to to stay within their comfort zone.

(And this reminds me of another situation, where I was tying a person up who appreciated it on  a sensual level - in fact, they requested it in order to let them relax and so there was a level of power dynamic in the trust they gave for it to be done, but it was also non-sexual.  Which called for its own unique approach to the tie.)

Essentially, I think I am just made extremely uncomfortable by non-consensual power dynamics - and need to be aware of this in regard to my own behaviour as well.

Still, plans for teaching rope continue apace.  You remember my gushing about  sash cord?  It comes in 100m rolls.  I think the plan is to cut a few starter lengths to sell on (at cost) to the people who have shown an interest, and then divide the rest into 10 and 15 metre lengths so that we have a stash of standardised rope.

Next up:  Hashing out a rope 101 outline. I've been an assistant to someone teaching it before, and I've done a bit of instruction with people who already know the basics, but I need to create a list of safety starter points so that I don't forget on the day.