Often in relationships things do not come down to “better” or “worse” decisions, but rather whose preferences count. If I want to cut my hair, and my partner wants me to keep it long, who gets their way? Whoever has the intellectual edge and can keep arguing until their opponent gives in.
This is why I prefer BDSM relationships, where “whose preferences count” becomes an explicit problem to discuss and solve. (The answer is never simply “mine, obviously”—but the BDSM community, for all its flaws, has come up with some pretty good contextual frameworks for negotiating / discovering an answer that satisfies everyone’s meta-preferences).
This is why I prefer BDSM relationships, where “whose preferences count” becomes an explicit problem to discuss and solve. (The answer is never simply “mine, obviously”—but the BDSM community, for all its flaws, has come up with some pretty good contextual frameworks for negotiating / discovering an answer that satisfies everyone’s meta-preferences).