Konsent, when experience takes on an unexpected meaning

Respect for autonomy means allowing both parties for their feelings to exist without automatically giving rise to obligations, demands, or a new relationship.

07/08/2026 · 13 min read

Even a thor­ough pri­or agree­ment can­not de­ter­mine in ad­vance every­thing peo­ple will ex­pe­ri­ence dur­ing a ses­sion. For ex­am­ple, they may agree that the ex­pe­ri­ence will not be erot­ic, sex­u­al, ro­man­tic, or re­la­tion­al, and such an agree­ment can de­fine the na­ture of touch, com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and joint ac­tions. How­ev­er, it can­not guar­an­tee that arousal, an erot­ic as­so­ci­a­tion, or an­oth­er un­in­tend­ed mean­ing will not arise in the body or mind of ei­ther par­tic­i­pant. An agree­ment can­not guar­an­tee what sig­nif­i­cance the ses­sion will grad­u­al­ly take on in the lived ex­pe­ri­ence of each in­di­vid­ual.

Dur­ing a ses­sion, some­one might be sur­prised by phys­i­cal arousal, an erot­ic as­so­ci­a­tion, an in­tense feel­ing of vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, close­ness, safe­ty, sur­ren­der, trust, or emo­tion­al con­nec­tion. De­spite ex­pec­ta­tions, the ex­pe­ri­ence may take on a ro­man­tic or re­la­tion­al sig­nif­i­cance. Con­verse­ly, an­oth­er per­son might dis­cov­er that a cer­tain kind of in­ti­ma­cy ac­tu­al­ly feels too per­son­al to them, or that they do not wish to share it with this spe­cif­ic per­son.

Personal Versus Shared Meaning

Such shifts do not have to be mu­tu­al. One and the same ses­sion can mean some­thing very dif­fer­ent to two peo­ple—for one, it re­mains a tech­ni­cal, aes­thet­ic, phys­i­cal, or friend­ly ex­pe­ri­ence, while for the oth­er, it be­gins to rep­re­sent ex­tra­or­di­nary in­ti­ma­cy, erot­ic con­nec­tion, or a sense of re­la­tion­al close­ness.

There­fore, the in­ten­si­ty of a shared ex­pe­ri­ence does not, in it­self, in­di­cate whether both peo­ple in­ter­pret it the same way. Peo­ple some­times tend to con­fuse a joint­ly ex­pe­ri­enced in­ten­si­ty with a joint­ly shared mean­ing—the fact that one per­son feels sig­nif­i­cant­ly clos­er to the oth­er does not mean the re­la­tion­ship has changed in the same way for the sec­ond per­son. A feel­ing of close­ness is not proof of mu­tu­al close­ness, an ex­pe­ri­enced ro­man­tic mean­ing is not proof of a ro­man­tic re­la­tion­ship, and in­ten­sive care or at­ten­tion are not, by them­selves, a promise of ex­clu­siv­i­ty or the con­tin­u­a­tion of the re­la­tion­ship out­side the ses­sion.

Experience Versus Action

The mere emer­gence of such an ex­pe­ri­ence is not a vi­o­la­tion of con­sent. A per­son does not have ab­solute con­trol over every bod­i­ly re­ac­tion, emo­tion, or the mean­ing a par­tic­u­lar ex­pe­ri­ence takes on for them. A spon­ta­neous re­ac­tion is not the same as a de­ci­sion, and an in­ter­nal ex­pe­ri­ence is not au­to­mat­i­cal­ly an ac­tion di­rect­ed at an­oth­er per­son.

It is there­fore im­por­tant to dis­tin­guish be­tween lev­els that may over­lap but are not iden­ti­cal: phys­i­cal arousal is not the same as erot­ic in­ter­est, erot­ic mean­ing is not the same as a wish to con­tin­ue sex­u­al­ly, a feel­ing of in­ti­ma­cy is not the same as ro­man­tic at­trac­tion, and ro­man­tic af­fec­tion is not the same as a de­sire to form a part­ner­ship.

A bod­i­ly re­ac­tion by it­self does not prove that a per­son want­ed the ex­pe­ri­ence, that they en­joyed it, that they are at­tract­ed to the oth­er per­son, or that they con­sent to erot­ic con­tin­u­a­tion. Sim­i­lar­ly, a feel­ing of trust or close­ness does not mean a per­son wants to car­ry that close­ness over into an­oth­er form of re­la­tion­ship.

The new mean­ing an ex­pe­ri­ence ac­quires for one per­son is there­fore pri­mar­i­ly in­for­ma­tion about their own pro­cess­ing. Only the way they be­gin to act upon this mean­ing to­ward an­oth­er per­son en­ters the realm of shared con­sent.

Both the Bound Person and the Person Leading the Session

The same prin­ci­ple ap­plies to both the bound per­son and the per­son ty­ing.

If an erot­ic, emo­tion­al, or re­la­tion­al mean­ing emerges for the bound per­son, an erot­ic or re­la­tion­al dy­nam­ic be­tween the two peo­ple does not au­to­mat­i­cal­ly arise from it. The bound per­son does not have to im­me­di­ate­ly com­mu­ni­cate every spon­ta­neous re­ac­tion. Their in­ter­nal pro­cess­ing re­mains part of their pri­va­cy.

A sig­nif­i­cant change oc­curs the mo­ment this ex­pe­ri­ence be­gins to project into joint ac­tions or ex­pec­ta­tions to­ward the oth­er per­son. For ex­am­ple, ex­pec­ta­tions of a dif­fer­ent kind of touch, greater in­ti­ma­cy, more fre­quent con­tact, ex­clu­siv­i­ty, or a cer­tain re­la­tion­al con­tin­u­a­tion may arise with­out any new agree­ment hav­ing been made.

Sim­i­lar­ly, a spon­ta­neous erot­ic, emo­tion­al, pro­tec­tive, or ro­man­tic re­ac­tion by the per­son lead­ing the ses­sion is not, in it­self, proof of role abuse. How­ev­er, the per­son lead­ing the ses­sion typ­i­cal­ly has a greater ca­pac­i­ty to in­flu­ence its course. They de­ter­mine the tem­po, the style of touch, the rope work, the du­ra­tion of in­di­vid­ual parts, and how they will re­spond to the bound per­son’s ex­pres­sions.

There­fore, they bear a greater re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to en­sure that their own new­ly arisen ex­pe­ri­ence does not be­gin al­ter­ing the form of joint ac­tion with­out a new agree­ment. If, for in­stance, they be­gin choos­ing more in­ti­mate touch­es, pro­long­ing cer­tain sit­u­a­tions, or gen­er­at­ing erot­ic ten­sion due to their own arousal—ten­sion that was not part of the orig­i­nal frame­work—it is no longer mere­ly an in­ter­nal re­ac­tion.

The de­ci­sive fac­tor is there­fore not only what a per­son feels, but how they han­dle their ex­pe­ri­ence.

Spontaneity Is Not an Alibi

This log­ic must not lead to a ref­er­ence to spon­tane­ity be­com­ing a uni­ver­sal ex­cuse. In­ter­nal ex­pe­ri­ence can­not be re­li­ably ver­i­fied from the out­side, and the mere as­ser­tion “I can’t help what I feel” there­fore says noth­ing yet about how a per­son is han­dling their ex­pe­ri­ence.

Even a gen­uine­ly un­ex­pect­ed erot­ic, emo­tion­al, or re­la­tion­al re­ac­tion can sub­se­quent­ly be used to pres­sure an­oth­er per­son. Like­wise, the lan­guage of spon­tane­ity can be used in­stru­men­tal­ly to ob­scure the tar­get­ed shift­ing of bound­aries.

There­fore, de­ter­min­ing whether a cer­tain feel­ing gen­uine­ly arose spon­ta­neous­ly is not al­ways the most im­por­tant thing. What fol­lows its emer­gence may be more sub­stan­tial. If a per­son ac­cepts that their ex­pe­ri­ence does not es­tab­lish a claim to change the shared dy­nam­ic, re­spects the orig­i­nal frame­work, and can ac­cept the pos­si­bil­i­ty that the oth­er per­son does not share its mean­ing, their re­ac­tion re­mains pri­mar­i­ly their own per­son­al ex­pe­ri­ence.

A dif­fer­ent sit­u­a­tion aris­es when an “un­ex­pect­ed” mean­ing re­peat­ed­ly be­comes a rea­son for propos­ing more in­ti­mate con­tact, shift­ing a pre­vi­ous­ly de­fined frame­work, or cre­at­ing pres­sure for the oth­er per­son to ac­cept the new in­ter­pre­ta­tion.

A sin­gle sit­u­a­tion may re­veal noth­ing about mo­ti­va­tion. How­ev­er, a re­cur­ring pat­tern can be more sig­nif­i­cant than a stat­ed in­ten­tion. If sup­pos­ed­ly spon­ta­neous shifts reg­u­lar­ly ap­pear pre­cise­ly in the di­rec­tion one per­son wants to steer the re­la­tion­ship or dy­nam­ic, it is not nec­es­sary to eval­u­ate every in­stance in iso­la­tion. The ques­tion is no longer just what a per­son claims they felt, but also whether their ac­tions re­peat­ed­ly cre­ate the same pres­sure on the oth­er per­son’s bound­aries.

More­over, ma­nip­u­la­tion does not have to take the form of an open de­mand. It can con­sist of re­peat­ed­ly cre­at­ing sit­u­a­tions where a new mean­ing is pre­sent­ed to the oth­er per­son as some­thing that “just hap­pened,” even though the re­sult is con­sis­tent­ly the same shift. Non-erot­ic ses­sions, for ex­am­ple, re­peat­ed­ly take on an erot­ic char­ac­ter, the agreed-upon lev­el of in­ti­ma­cy grad­u­al­ly ex­pands, or re­la­tion­al ten­sion re­peat­ed­ly ap­pears where one per­son de­sires greater in­ti­ma­cy. For­mal­ly, no di­rect de­mand may be ut­tered, and every sin­gle step can be de­scribed as spon­ta­neous.

At a cer­tain point, there­fore, it is no longer only a mat­ter of whether a spe­cif­ic feel­ing was un­planned. It is also im­por­tant whether a per­son rec­og­nized a re­cur­ring pat­tern and how they re­spond­ed to it. Arousal, af­fec­tion, or a de­sire for greater close­ness can be spon­ta­neous. But their spon­tane­ity nei­ther ex­plains nor jus­ti­fies re­peat­ed ac­tions that pre­dictably push the shared dy­nam­ic in the same di­rec­tion.

Re­spon­si­bil­i­ty does not be­gin with the emer­gence of a feel­ing or a bod­i­ly re­ac­tion. It be­gins where a per­son knows, or can know, how their pro­cess­ing in­flu­ences their ac­tions, yet al­lows the oth­er per­son to en­ter once again into a sit­u­a­tion where the orig­i­nal­ly agreed frame­work pre­dictably blurs.

When an Offer Does Not Carry Equal Weight for Both

When as­sess­ing a new erot­ic, emo­tion­al, or re­la­tion­al mean­ing, it is not enough to ob­serve sole­ly whether it was ex­pressed as an of­fer rather than a de­mand. It is also im­por­tant how easy it is for the oth­er per­son to ac­tu­al­ly refuse that of­fer.

The abil­i­ty to say no is not equal un­der all cir­cum­stances. Asym­me­try aris­es not only from roles dur­ing a spe­cif­ic ses­sion. It can also stem from ex­pe­ri­ence, rep­u­ta­tion, age, com­mu­ni­ty stand­ing, men­tor­ship, ac­cess to con­tacts, or the fact that one per­son can open or close cer­tain op­por­tu­ni­ties for an­oth­er. For­mal­ly, both may have the same right to refuse, while the prac­ti­cal con­se­quences of re­fusal are not the same for them.

Pre­cise­ly for this rea­son, the same state­ment can car­ry dif­fer­ent weight in dif­fer­ent re­la­tion­ships. The phrase “I’ve re­al­ized our ses­sions have start­ed to mean some­thing re­la­tion­al to me” can func­tion be­tween two equal­ly po­si­tioned peo­ple as an open shar­ing that can be an­swered with­out ma­jor con­se­quences if the oth­er per­son does not feel the same mean­ing. How­ev­er, if ut­tered by an ex­pe­ri­enced and re­spect­ed per­son to­ward a new­com­er—to whom they si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly pro­vide ac­cess to ex­pe­ri­ences, con­tacts, or the com­mu­ni­ty—the ex­act same sen­tence can cre­ate pres­sure even with­out a sin­gle ex­plic­it de­mand.

The essence of asym­me­try is there­fore not that a per­son with greater in­flu­ence must not share their ex­pe­ri­ence. It means, how­ev­er, that they must ac­count for the gap be­tween their in­ten­tion and the im­pact of their words. What they per­ceive as a non-bind­ing of­fer of greater close­ness or erot­ic shar­ing may be ex­pe­ri­enced by the oth­er per­son as some­thing dif­fi­cult to refuse with­out risk­ing the loss of the re­la­tion­ship, fu­ture ses­sions, men­tor­ship, so­cial ac­cep­tance, or com­mu­ni­ty ac­cess.

The greater this dif­fer­ence, the greater the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty the per­son with more in­flu­ence has for cre­at­ing a space where re­fusal will not mean a sanc­tion or a change in treat­ment. It is not enough that “no can be ut­tered.” It is also im­por­tant whether it can be ut­tered with­out an un­rea­son­able cost.

Asym­me­try does not al­ter the va­lid­i­ty of per­son­al ex­pe­ri­ence. It does, how­ev­er, change the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for how that ex­pe­ri­ence is car­ried into the shared space. The greater the dif­fer­ence in ex­pe­ri­ence or sta­tus, the greater the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty the per­son with more in­flu­ence bears for how they com­mu­ni­cate their new ex­pe­ri­ence. Not be­cause they are for­bid­den from shar­ing their feel­ings, but be­cause they must reck­on with the fact that their words may car­ry more weight for the oth­er per­son than they them­selves in­tend to give them. Cau­tion here does not mean sup­press­ing one’s own pro­cess­ing, but rec­og­niz­ing that the abil­i­ty to voice some­thing and the oth­er per­son’s abil­i­ty to freely refuse it are not sym­met­ri­cal un­der all cir­cum­stances.

When Divergent Meaning Transcends the Question of Consent

A par­tic­u­lar ques­tion aris­es when an ex­pe­ri­ence ac­quires re­la­tion­al mean­ing for only one per­son, and this dis­crep­an­cy be­gins to in­flu­ence the rea­sons why peo­ple con­tin­ue in shared ty­ing. One may un­der­stand sub­se­quent ses­sions pri­mar­i­ly as phys­i­cal, cre­ative, or aes­thet­ic col­lab­o­ra­tion, while for the oth­er they be­come a sig­nif­i­cant source of close­ness, emo­tion­al bond­ing, or hope for a deep­er re­la­tion­ship.

The sheer di­ver­gence of these mean­ings does not au­to­mat­i­cal­ly mean that con­tin­u­a­tion is un­eth­i­cal. But it opens ques­tions that can no longer be re­solved sole­ly by whether both peo­ple con­sent to a spe­cif­ic ses­sion. It also de­pends on whether both suf­fi­cient­ly un­der­stand the re­la­tion­al frame­work they are con­tin­u­ing with­in, whether one per­son is not op­er­at­ing on a hope the oth­er know­ing­ly does not share, and whether some­one is be­gin­ning to prof­it from the emo­tion­al in­vest­ment or vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of the oth­er.

This is es­pe­cial­ly im­por­tant when a per­son knows that, for the oth­er, shared ty­ing means sub­stan­tial­ly more than it does for them­selves. The ques­tion then is not only “do they con­sent to an­oth­er ses­sion?” but also “what do I know about the rea­sons why they are say­ing yes, and what am I gain­ing from their yes?”

Here, the ques­tion of con­sent meets the broad­er ethics of re­la­tion­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, asym­me­try, and in­stru­men­tal­iza­tion. One-sided re­la­tion­al mean­ing and the ethics of con­tin­u­ing in such a dy­nam­ic there­fore ex­tend be­yond the scope of this chap­ter and de­serve a ded­i­cat­ed space of their own.

When Silence Is Not Enough

It is not nec­es­sary to ver­bal­ize every spon­ta­neous re­ac­tion right away—the oblig­a­tion to share one’s in­ner world can­not be con­flat­ed with the oblig­a­tion to re­spect a shared agree­ment. Yet there are sit­u­a­tions where si­lence alone is no longer enough. The bound­ary does not lie sim­ply be­tween what a per­son speaks aloud and what they keep to them­selves. The more im­por­tant ques­tion is whether some­thing has changed that could af­fect the con­di­tions un­der which the oth­er per­son con­sents.

The core ques­tion is there­fore not: “Must I tell the oth­er per­son what I feel?” Rather: “Does the oth­er per­son need to know that some­thing has changed in or­der to tru­ly con­tin­ue de­cid­ing about their par­tic­i­pa­tion?”

It is pre­cise­ly at this point that an in­ter­nal change ceas­es to be mere­ly a pri­vate mat­ter and be­comes part of the con­di­tions of shared con­sent.

If some­one’s re­la­tion­ship to an­oth­er per­son fun­da­men­tal­ly changes, it may be use­ful to bring it up be­fore the next ses­sion—not be­cause every emo­tion must be con­fessed, but be­cause cer­tain changes can af­fect the abil­i­ty to en­ter into a fur­ther ex­pe­ri­ence un­der the same con­di­tions as be­fore. Com­plete align­ment of in­ter­nal mean­ings is nei­ther nec­es­sary nor pos­si­ble; what mat­ters is whether dif­fer­ing mean­ings cre­ate fun­da­men­tal­ly di­ver­gent ex­pec­ta­tions about what peo­ple can claim from one an­oth­er or what will fol­low.

Dis­tin­guish­ing be­tween per­son­al and shared mean­ing re­mains im­por­tant even af­ter a ses­sion, be­cause some re­ac­tions do not ap­pear im­me­di­ate­ly. Hours or days lat­er, a per­son may re­al­ize that the ex­pe­ri­ence opened up a strong emo­tion­al bond, an erot­ic in­ter­est, or a de­sire for greater close­ness; con­verse­ly, an­oth­er per­son may sub­se­quent­ly feel dis­tance, un­cer­tain­ty, or a need to re­fine a bound­ary. Nei­ther the sub­se­quent emer­gence of these feel­ings retroac­tive­ly al­ters con­sent to what has al­ready tak­en place—though it may change what a per­son is will­ing to agree to mov­ing for­ward.

Consent as a Framework, Not a Guarantee

The un­ex­pect­ed mean­ing of an ex­pe­ri­ence does not have to be a prob­lem that needs “fix­ing”. It can sim­ply be a new re­al­i­ty that needs to be tak­en into ac­count. Some­times it changes noth­ing; oth­er times it leads to al­tered bound­aries, a new agree­ment, the in­ter­rup­tion of a dy­nam­ic, or a de­ci­sion not to con­tin­ue fur­ther. An un­planned im­pact in it­self does not mean mis­con­duct; but good in­ten­tions cease to be enough the mo­ment a trans­for­ma­tion of the shared dy­nam­ic be­comes rec­og­niz­able.

Con­sent can­not be a guar­an­tee of what mean­ing an ex­pe­ri­ence will ul­ti­mate­ly take on. The im­por­tant bound­ary lies else­where: be­tween what aris­es with­in one per­son’s ex­pe­ri­ence and what is sup­posed to be­come of that mean­ing be­tween two peo­ple. An in­tense feel­ing can be en­tire­ly real with­out be­ing mu­tu­al. The fact that an ex­pe­ri­ence has tak­en on erot­ic, ro­man­tic, or re­la­tion­al sig­nif­i­cance for one per­son does not dic­tate how the oth­er should un­der­stand it.

Au­ton­o­my at both ends of the rope there­fore con­sists of more than just the right to ac­cept or refuse a spe­cif­ic ac­tion. It also in­cludes the right to de­cide what kind of re­la­tion­ship a per­son is will­ing to cre­ate, what mean­ings they want to de­vel­op to­geth­er, and when they no longer wish to con­tin­ue in some­thing that has be­come dif­fer­ent from what it was at the be­gin­ning.

Per­haps this is pre­cise­ly where one of the most dif­fi­cult forms of re­spect­ing au­ton­o­my lies: al­low­ing one’s own ex­pe­ri­ence to be real with­out de­mand­ing that the oth­er per­son val­i­date its re­al­i­ty by as­sign­ing it the same mean­ing.

Con­sent is there­fore not a promise that an ex­pe­ri­ence will re­main what it was meant to be. It is rather a com­mit­ment that if its mean­ing trans­forms, one per­son will not write that trans­for­ma­tion for both.