Consent as a path to autonomy

Consent as an active process in which, through mutual dialogue and understanding of one’s own experiences, we practically learn autonomy.

06/08/2026 · 8 min read

Au­ton­o­my is of­ten con­sid­ered one of the fun­da­men­tal pre­req­ui­sites of qual­i­ty con­sent. For a per­son to make a free de­ci­sion, they need to un­der­stand their own needs, know their bound­aries, and be able to com­mu­ni­cate them to an­oth­er per­son, right? The bet­ter we un­der­stand our­selves, the more pre­cise­ly we can de­cide what we want to en­ter into and un­der what con­di­tions.

This view is cor­rect, but it cap­tures only a part of the mu­tu­al re­la­tion­ship be­tween au­ton­o­my and con­sent. It as­sumes that au­ton­o­my ex­ists al­ready be­fore ex­pe­ri­ence and that con­sent mere­ly pro­tects it. In re­al­i­ty, well-man­aged con­sent can de­vel­op and strength­en a per­son’s abil­i­ty to ex­er­cise their own au­ton­o­my.

At the same time, it is im­por­tant to dis­tin­guish au­ton­o­my as a fun­da­men­tal right from the abil­i­ty to tru­ly ex­er­cise this right.

How We Learn to Decide for Ourselves

The right to con­sent, refuse, or change one’s mind be­longs to every­one re­gard­less of ex­pe­ri­ence, self-con­fi­dence, or com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills. How­ev­er, mak­ing de­ci­sions in a spe­cif­ic, re­la­tion­al, and of­ten in­tense sit­u­a­tion is a skill that can deep­en through ex­pe­ri­ence.

It is nec­es­sary to dis­tin­guish the right to de­cide about one­self from the abil­i­ty to ex­er­cise this right in a spe­cif­ic sit­u­a­tion. It is sup­port­ed by a num­ber of sub-skills: per­ceiv­ing one’s phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al state, dis­tin­guish­ing be­tween dif­fer­ent kinds of dis­com­fort, cap­tur­ing an emerg­ing need, and find­ing a way to com­mu­ni­cate it. A sig­nif­i­cant part of this learn­ing is in­te­ro­cep­tion, which is the per­cep­tion of sig­nals com­ing from one’s own body—changes in breath­ing, ten­sion, heart rate, pain, fa­tigue, nau­sea, or over­all or­gan­is­mic ac­ti­va­tion. The phys­i­cal sig­nal it­self does not yet con­tain a clear mes­sage. Ac­cel­er­at­ed breath­ing may be re­lat­ed to arousal, fear, phys­i­cal ex­er­tion, or sev­er­al ex­pe­ri­ences si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly. Ten­sion can be a want­ed part of an in­tense ex­pe­ri­ence, but also a sign of the need to change some­thing.

The abil­i­ty to un­der­stand these dif­fer­ences grad­u­al­ly be­comes more pre­cise. In the con­text of shibari, the bound per­son learns to per­ceive what close­ness, guid­ance, move­ment re­stric­tion, the at­ten­tion of an­oth­er per­son, or the tem­po­rary sur­ren­der of a part of con­trol does to them. They may dis­cov­er that they per­ceive a cer­tain type of in­ten­si­ty as pleas­ant only un­der spe­cif­ic con­di­tions, that they need more time, greater pre­dictabil­i­ty, or more fre­quent con­tact. Sim­i­lar­ly, they may re­al­ize that some­thing they were at­tract­ed to in fan­ta­sy is not what they want in ac­tu­al ex­pe­ri­ence. The pur­pose of this learn­ing is not to over­come one’s own re­ac­tions or grad­u­al­ly en­dure as much as pos­si­ble. Its goal is to bet­ter rec­og­nize what is hap­pen­ing in­side the per­son, what mean­ing the giv­en ex­pe­ri­ence has for them, and how they want to han­dle it.

The skill of de­cid­ing about one­self there­fore does not arise through mere con­tem­pla­tion. A per­son needs to reg­is­ter their own re­ac­tion, un­der­stand it, com­mu­ni­cate their need, and ex­pe­ri­ence that this com­mu­ni­ca­tion in­flu­enced the fur­ther course of the sit­u­a­tion. It is pre­cise­ly through this that they gain the con­fi­dence that their pro­cess­ing is an im­por­tant source of in­for­ma­tion and that it makes sense to pay at­ten­tion to it.

A Relationship in Which a Decision is Meaningful

Au­ton­o­my is of­ten un­der­stood as in­de­pen­dence from oth­ers. In in­ter­per­son­al re­la­tion­ships, how­ev­er, it does not arise in iso­la­tion. It de­vel­ops through ex­pe­ri­ences of how oth­er peo­ple re­act to our de­ci­sions.

If a change of mind is ac­cept­ed with­out pres­sure, ridicule, or the ne­ces­si­ty of lengthy self-jus­ti­fi­ca­tion, a per­son gains the ex­pe­ri­ence that un­cer­tain­ty is not a fail­ure and that bound­aries do not have to threat­en the re­la­tion­ship. Such an ex­pe­ri­ence is not stored mere­ly as a con­scious be­lief. It also projects into the ex­pec­ta­tion with which a per­son en­ters into fur­ther sit­u­a­tions.

If the bound per­son re­peat­ed­ly ex­pe­ri­ences that they can ask for a change and their re­quest leads to an ap­pro­pri­ate re­ac­tion, it will be eas­i­er for them next time to reg­is­ter and com­mu­ni­cate their own need. If, on the oth­er hand, they en­counter ir­ri­ta­tion, ques­tion­ing, or per­sua­sion, they may learn that their de­ci­sion for­mal­ly ex­ists, but its prac­ti­cal ef­fec­tive­ness is lim­it­ed.

Pre­cise­ly the ef­fec­tive­ness of a de­ci­sion is cru­cial for the de­vel­op­ment of au­ton­o­my. It is not enough for a per­son to be able to speak up. They also need to ex­pe­ri­ence the con­nec­tion be­tween their own com­mu­ni­ca­tion and the change in the fur­ther course of the in­ter­ac­tion. This can in­volve slow­ing down, ad­just­ing in­ten­si­ty, chang­ing po­si­tion, restor­ing con­tact, tran­si­tion­ing to a dif­fer­ent form of ex­pe­ri­ence, or pos­si­bly even end­ing the ses­sion. What is es­sen­tial is that con­tin­u­a­tion is not the only an­tic­i­pat­ed di­rec­tion and that the de­ci­sion of the bound per­son has a real in­flu­ence on fur­ther events.

This is how so-called agency is cre­at­ed: the ex­pe­ri­ence that a per­son is not mere­ly an ob­ject, but a par­tic­i­pant who co-cre­ates the ex­pe­ri­ence. Agency is at the same time not in con­tra­dic­tion with the sur­ren­der of a part of con­trol. The bound per­son can de­cide to let them­selves be led while still re­main­ing the ini­tia­tor of this de­ci­sion. Au­ton­o­my does not con­sist in the ne­ces­si­ty to con­trol the sit­u­a­tion at every mo­ment. It con­sists in the fact that par­tic­i­pa­tion in the cho­sen dy­nam­ic re­mains one’s own ac­tion and that the pos­si­bil­i­ty to re-eval­u­ate this par­tic­i­pa­tion does not lose its prac­ti­cal sig­nif­i­cance.

The per­son lead­ing the ses­sion can­not de­ter­mine what the oth­er per­son is ex­pe­ri­enc­ing nor what mean­ing the ex­pe­ri­ence has for them—they can­not take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for their en­tire in­ner world. They can, how­ev­er, sig­nif­i­cant­ly in­flu­ence the en­vi­ron­ment in which the abil­i­ty to de­cide de­vel­ops. If ques­tions, sug­ges­tions, cor­rec­tions, and feed­back are ac­cept­ed as a nat­ur­al part of shared in­ter­ac­tion, the bound per­son learns to ac­tive­ly mon­i­tor their own ex­pe­ri­ence and in­flu­ence the course of the ses­sion and oth­er in­ter­ac­tions. If, how­ev­er, they are re­ceived as a dis­tur­bance, dis­trust, or crit­i­cism, the per­son may in­stead learn to push away their in­ner voice and adapt.

The task of the per­son lead­ing the ses­sion is there­fore not to teach the bound per­son to re­act in the “cor­rect way” nor to lead them to­ward greater en­durance. Their task is to sup­port the abil­i­ty to per­ceive one’s own ex­pe­ri­ence and treat it as a le­git­i­mate source of de­ci­sion-mak­ing. This may mean leav­ing enough time, not of­fer­ing one’s own in­ter­pre­ta­tion as the only cor­rect one, and ac­cept­ing that the ex­pe­ri­ence may be un­clear, con­tra­dic­to­ry, or un­der­stand­able only in ret­ro­spect.

Let us not for­get, how­ev­er, that the per­son lead­ing the ses­sion also has their own bound­aries, needs, and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for whether they want and are able to con­tin­ue in a giv­en form. Ac­cep­tance of feed­back does not mean an oblig­a­tion to ful­fill every wish, but a will­ing­ness to take the oth­er per­son’s mes­sage se­ri­ous­ly and look for a next step that is ac­cept­able to both.

Experience That Expands Future Choice

Sub­se­quent re­flec­tion also plays an im­por­tant role. In an in­tense sit­u­a­tion, there may not be enough at­ten­tion avail­able for the im­me­di­ate com­pre­hen­sion of every re­ac­tion. Af­ter it ends, one can re­turn to the ex­pe­ri­ence, com­pare ex­pec­ta­tions with the ac­tu­al ex­pe­ri­ence, and more pre­cise­ly name what took place dur­ing it. This re­flec­tion is cru­cial for self-knowl­edge. How­ev­er, the rig­ger should not as­sume au­thor­i­ty over the mean­ing of some­one else’s ex­pe­ri­ence.

It is le­git­i­mate to feel joy, dis­com­fort, close­ness, un­cer­tain­ty, pride, ac­tu­al­ly any­thing, all with­in a sin­gle ex­pe­ri­ence. A per­son does not need to im­me­di­ate­ly sim­pli­fy their own ex­pe­ri­ence in or­der to take it se­ri­ous­ly. What is par­tic­u­lar­ly im­por­tant is what the mod­el takes away into the fu­ture. At the same time, they do not have to ar­rive at the con­clu­sion that they want to ex­pe­ri­ence the ex­act same thing again. The bound per­son may find that a cer­tain way of guid­ance, in­ten­si­ty, or con­tact does not suit them. Even such a re­al­iza­tion ex­pands fu­ture pos­si­bil­i­ty of choice.

If, how­ev­er, the bound per­son ex­pe­ri­ences with­in a ses­sion that they are not to trust their own body or their own re­ac­tions, if the sig­nif­i­cance of their needs is ques­tioned or the es­tab­lish­ment of bound­aries is in­ter­pret­ed as a per­son­al fail­ure, they are not learn­ing au­ton­o­my, but adap­ta­tion.

Conclusion

Qual­i­ty con­sent does not pro­tect only the de­ci­sions a per­son is al­ready able to make. It helps de­vel­op the abil­i­ty thanks to which they will bet­ter rec­og­nize, ex­press, and car­ry out their fu­ture de­ci­sions.

Au­ton­o­my in this prac­ti­cal sense is the abil­i­ty to reg­is­ter one’s own ex­pe­ri­ence, un­der­stand it, make a de­ci­sion based on it, and through this de­ci­sion in­flu­ence the fur­ther course of the sit­u­a­tion. There­fore, it is not enough to sim­ply know that we are al­lowed to want or refuse some­thing. We also need the ex­pe­ri­ence that our needs mat­ter and that com­mu­ni­cat­ing them can tru­ly change the sit­u­a­tion. It de­vel­ops through re­la­tion­ships in which one’s own voice can have a real ef­fect and in which self-knowl­edge does not have to cor­re­spond to the ex­pec­ta­tions of oth­ers.