Synopsis
This essay uses BDSM and D/s relationships as a case in which power, vulnerability, desire, objectification, consent, and ambiguity are made unusually explicit. Rather than treating objectification as automatically synonymous with dehumanization, it examines how negotiated objecthood can coexist with agency and recognition. The paper argues that practices developed in stigmatized communities—direct negotiation, continuous communication, boundaries, aftercare, and accountability—have broader ethical value.
The problem it responds to
Mainstream ethical frameworks often assume autonomy as the default condition and treat objectification as an exceptional failure. That leaves little language for relations in which people deliberately enter ambiguity, asymmetry, or consensual objecthood.
What the work contributes
- Applies the RPCM to an explicit field of negotiated power.
- Distinguishes objectification from total denial of subjectivity.
- Treats ambiguity as a condition that can produce both profound harm and meaningful intimacy.
- Identifies communication and care practices that may transfer beyond kink contexts.
Development
- Case application within the wider Continuity Ethics project.
- Builds from the subject–object ambiguity described in the RPCM.
Keywords