All sex is about power

[Ronin]

They would still be deluding themselves

So everyone that views interactions just as interactions, is automatically deluding themselves?
Opening a door for someone can be about having an upper hand over them, controling the entrance/exit as well as a fashion that person uses the door, the time they get in and out the room, yet do you check everyone at the door with that contempt?

Some times, things are simply feel good. With people or not, involved. Various intimacy levels. Buying an icecream together is also not an inherently power act, so why would sex be, just because people happen to be closer and using (sometimes) different parts of their bodies?

 

[somerandomguy]

Buying an icecream together is also not an inherently power act, so why would sex be, just because people happen to be closer and using (sometimes) different parts of their bodies?

Because, as @grit noted, sex involves manipulation of one's own body with another person's body. I can eat ice cream by myself. Sex is an physically aggressive act of one person towards another person. I suppose both people could be physically aggressive towards each other, but that doesn't usually happen. Usually one person (i.e.the man - not always, but society doesn't recognize it if it's the other way around) demands/coerces an action from another person, who either chooses to submit, and gives up her power, or refuses, and becomes the one with the power.

Some people find that fun. Or so I'm told.

 

[Friday]

LOL.. I think we’re getting a little closer.

I can pour a cup of coffee because I love coffee.
I can trip and splash it in someone’s face, severely burning them.
I can hold them down and pour hot coffee onto someone’s face.

No abusive intent. My intent was deliciousness. :smug:
Accident.
Abuse.

There a difference between making a mistake (and people being affected by that!), and outright abuse. Just because someone can be hurt by something? By either accident or design? Doesn’t mean that the act itself, much less the intent, is nefarious. I’m not secretly plotting to splash coffee in someone’s face every time I pour a cup. That’s not WHY I drink coffee. Even if i’m Thinking about it when my coworker is being an ass :shifty:, that doesn’t make most of my coffee related thoughts immaterial, or untrue. I drink coffee because I love it. Not because I plan on using it as a weapon.

...

I did not have kids in order TO hurt and abuse them.

...

If you describe a day with your child? I “could” tell you how every single act you did was one of abuse and neglect. Like, go to prison level abuse and neglect. Every. Single. Act.

That’s not the case, right? You weren’t grooming them, by being nice, nor taking secret enjoyment out of setting them up to be reeeeeeally hurt by what you’re about to do to them by making them think something is nice before using that (ha! You f*cking piece of shit thought you actually got to play with this toy?) to crush them. You weren’t sexually abusing them by kissing them goodnight. You weren’t abandoning them by taking them to daycare. You weren’t starving them by making them wait 15 minutes for dinner. You weren’t putting on a show in public, only to get “real” as soon as other people weren’t around. If I ask you how many times you’ve raped your children today, zero wouldn’t be a lie. Et cetera. But I have had the conversation with someone who literally believed all parents are child raping pieces of shit who only have children in order to abuse them. That’s the only reason people have kids. To hurt them, deliberately, as much as possible. And that anyone who said otherwise was either delusional or lying.

It’s that level of brain-screech, I’m looking for.

Did you, @somerandomguy have children in order to rape & abuse them?
Not only NO! But ...HELL NO! :mad: ...right???

Not all parents are abusers.
Not all sex is about power/control/winning/losing

 

[shimmerz]

I think it all depends on who the players are, don't you? I have been in relationships where sex was given TO the other person. Where both partners gave to each other. I have to tell you, it is an almost unbeatable synergy.

So yeah, I am going to say that not everyone uses power as a currency. I don't think your reference to never and can't etc is a reflect of some people's reality.

Maybe you were trained to focus on power only. Many of us were. That would be a distorted belief in my opinion.

 

[somerandomguy]

Not all parents are abusers

True. But all parents will hurt their children. Most unknowingly. Many on purpose.

Not all sex is about power/control/winning/losing

But all sex has a power dynamic, whether the participants want to acknowledge it or not.

 

[somerandomguy]

I have been in relationships where sex was given TO the other person. Where both partners gave to each other. I have to tell you, it is an almost unbeatable synergy.

Yeah, that's what everyone pursues, I think. Few of us ever achieve it or ever will.

So yeah, I am going to say that not everyone uses power as a currency.

I hope this isn't a rude question, but ... are you sure your partner didn't see power as a currency during sex? And can you ever really be sure?

 

[Friday]

But all sex has a power dynamic, whether the participants want to acknowledge it or not.

It really doesn’t have to.

But if you don’t want to see that, you won’t.

 

[somerandomguy]

It really doesn’t have to.

I guess I just can't get around this.

As long as the couple is made up of two different people with different needs, desires, physical strengths, expectations, etc. there's going to be an imbalance. I just don't see how that doesn't translate into a power imbalance.

 

[shimmerz]

And can you ever really be sure?

Yes, I have been in some crazy bold power dynamics. I absolutely know the difference. And that might be the problem

somerandomguy. I think if you haven't actually experienced anything but high dynamics in sex then it is really freaking hard to imagine anything but. Kind of like back in the day when I was trying to feel safety. I had to design what safety meant to me so it could exist for me.

I agree with Friday. You don't need to buy into the fact that it exists. But if you wanted it to exist -- even if it wasn't possible -- what would it look like? Then when you are ready to loosen up on that belief a bit -- you can focus on creating your own version of a non power based sexual experience.

But all sex has a power dynamic,

I disagree. Some sex is based on passion. Not a power dynamic. Passion looks and feels light years apart from power.

 

[somerandomguy]

But if you wanted it to exist -- even if it wasn't possible -- what would it look like?

My imagination isn't that good, I'm afraid.

 

[Ronin]

there's going to be an imbalance.

Why do you see differences inherently as imbalance, while it can be viewed as balance at different points.
Another way is simply seeing people, who are different and varied, and complement each other.

I am still struggling with that narrow view of power imbalance, too. Get my back on this, will ya, I can do the other things. :smug: Win win and working together. Or more like, playing together.
How does power imbalance become inherently exploitation?

 

[shimmerz]

My imagination isn't that good, I'm afraid.

I have always found imagining the unimaginable to be the hardest part of healing for me. I have learned to trust however, that just because I can't imagine it - doesn't mean it doesn't exist.