With Fusion coming soon, it means starting to make plans for play. One of the people Lux and I met last year became a friend, and over the course of the year has dropped hints that he wanted to play. Well, I got to the point where I could start working on my dance card, and told him that we should find time for negotiations before the event, to save time.
Later that night, with him being the person who initiated the idea of play, asks me what I want to do. Now, to me, this is rather irritating. If you approach someone, you should at least have a vague idea of something you're interested in. Instead, as I asked him, he continually tried to pass the ball back to me, avoiding giving me any sort of answer.
Frustrated, I gave him my biggest limits, hoping it would give him more to work off of. He did the equivalent of throwing his Fet profile down on the table and asking me to build a scene from that. Needless to say, this didn't help me at all.
After many irritating attempts, I flat out told him that he wasn't a vending machine, and I refused to treat him like one, and needed more from him if we were going to do anything.
And suddenly, he woke up. He said that he didn't realize that he was so used to that treatment.
I understand how tops wind up in that situation, but this was definitely part of a turning point in our conversation. It also makes me not so secretly glad that the lectures I'm teaching at camp have a focus on healthy balanced negotiation and self awareness.
I think in part of that heavy consent shit that is always in flux, we hit points where tops stop being people to a lot of bottoms. Tops defer to the bottom, and let them build the scene, especially when there is no power exchange planned, for fear of being accused of some such nonsense. It's lead to very one sided negotiation training.
We as a scene need to practice balanced negotiation in order for everyone to be happy.
Later that night, with him being the person who initiated the idea of play, asks me what I want to do. Now, to me, this is rather irritating. If you approach someone, you should at least have a vague idea of something you're interested in. Instead, as I asked him, he continually tried to pass the ball back to me, avoiding giving me any sort of answer.
Frustrated, I gave him my biggest limits, hoping it would give him more to work off of. He did the equivalent of throwing his Fet profile down on the table and asking me to build a scene from that. Needless to say, this didn't help me at all.
After many irritating attempts, I flat out told him that he wasn't a vending machine, and I refused to treat him like one, and needed more from him if we were going to do anything.
And suddenly, he woke up. He said that he didn't realize that he was so used to that treatment.
I understand how tops wind up in that situation, but this was definitely part of a turning point in our conversation. It also makes me not so secretly glad that the lectures I'm teaching at camp have a focus on healthy balanced negotiation and self awareness.
I think in part of that heavy consent shit that is always in flux, we hit points where tops stop being people to a lot of bottoms. Tops defer to the bottom, and let them build the scene, especially when there is no power exchange planned, for fear of being accused of some such nonsense. It's lead to very one sided negotiation training.
We as a scene need to practice balanced negotiation in order for everyone to be happy.
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