On Not Having a Say (When is a Check-In Not a Check-In?)

"Ci sarà una scelta, giusto?" (There will be a choice, right?)

I texted that to the person who had invited me on a mountain hike, my first real one. When she described it to me, she told me that we would hike to a rifugio (mountain hut with food and bathroom) and there would be the option for some people to continue on much farther, through snowy conditions, to the nearest peak. But I had an inkling it wouldn't play out like that - hence the text. No reply.

Sure enough, when the group of 7 people, all non-english-speaking Italians except for me, got to the rifugio, it was decided that we would all proceed to the peak. As a middle-class white male who's always been highly fluent in the dominant language, it was a new and very unpleasant experience to find myself not having a voice in the conversation. I could understand bits of what was said: two and half hours each way, maybe more - snow up to the knee - possibly dangerous. But the discussion was flying too fast for me to follow it, much less influence the course of it or get all my questions answered. At times they talked about me as if I wasn't there ("well <my name> is wearing jeans").

And then it was decided.

I still had the choice to go against this decision! Why didn't I? I was exhausted even after the smaller hike, and felt like I was about to throw up. But it was a brand new group of friends, and I didn't want to make an early impression as being difficult or wimpy. I knew it would be challenging and awkward to get my feelings across in Italian. And staying behind would have meant 4 hours by myself sitting around the rifugio.

So I didn't even really have an inner debate. I just sighed and knew that I would be going up the mountain. There was some talk of, "if some people are tired, they can turn back," but I knew that wasn't a thing either.

A couple of times people would check in with me: "Everything ok?" What could I do but smile, give a thumbs up and go, "Sì!"

Obviously I'm working towards a kink-consent-type message here. But where it gets complicated is that the hike went great! One of the best experiences in my life, in fact. I got to use crampons for the first time, I felt fine, and the views were almost overwhelming in their beauty. I'm super glad I did it.

This twist would tend to confirm the view held by some people, often of an authoritarian/conservative orientation (and I mean that neutrally), that often people don't know their own potential, and need to be pushed to do things they truly don't want to do, and become stronger that way.

But I don't think that's compatible with the explicit consent model of kink that I believe in (and that is beginning to colour my views overall). I believe that even if you sometimes think you know better than someone what their true needs and limits are, ultimately they are the only person who can really be the judge. If someone feels they're not ready, you trust them on that. If they think they need to stop, they need to stop. And people have the right to choose their level of risk. So even though I was happy in the end, I still had the (brief, minor) experience of a lack of agency, of not feeling like I had a say in what would happen to me, in a way that I haven't really felt since middle school.

(of course all the folks who are routinely denied agency because of their identities are chuckling ruefully at me right now...)

All this was much magnified by the difficulty in making myself understood, and to be able to follow the information going into the decision. More subtly, to not be part of the swift flow of a discussion, and the layers of personal transactions beneath it. As a side point, the fact that the group didn't have an official leader also made it more difficult: some people are always more influential than others in such situations, but no one is accountable, everyone can say it was "the group" that decided.

More than the issue of respect for agency, the bigger issue is that the situation they created was risky. I could feel the pressure viscerally, and how I would have had to go even if it had been a much bigger deal for me. And this was just about a long walk. At most I might have twisted an ankle or got heat exhaustion. If this was a bondage, fireplay, knifeplay, or even heavy D/s scene, with heavy emotions involved, much bigger things would have been at risk. All these Italians were super nice, considerate people - it just felt more natural to talk around me rather than suffer the friction of the communication barrier. So I realized this is one way scenes can go badly wrong despite everyone being well intentioned.

So here are some kink lessons I want to take away from this:

• Making sure everyone involved in a scene is truly ok with what's going to happen is an involved process, consisting of lots of two-way communication, and must not be rushed or bulldozed through.
• Scenes should have momentum, but that must be at least partially an illusion. No matter how elaborate the conception, how much you've been looking forward to it, how much of a hassle it will be to change course, whether there's an audience or money involved, you must be ready to shut it down on a moment's notice if anyone involved wants it to. And that means both having that in your mind, and taking the time to build that into the scene in the planning stages. Otherwise a check-in is an empty gesture.
• Picture the person in your group who is least effective at communicating their needs and wishes. Maybe because english isn't their first language, or they have a disability, or because they are new to kink and don't know the vocabulary or their own limits, or they are a "pleaser", or they currently under the influence of anxiety or subspace. Look inside yourself: do you deep down believe that person's needs and wishes are less important than the other people's? If so, then maybe you should take yourself out of a planning or decision making role.

(Just to be clear, I want to say that although my italian is slowly improving, I'm also getting more comfortable with being the slightly-confused one in the group - it's certainly good for me! - and I consider it a great treat and privilege to be able to hang out with native Italians. For anything less intense than a 6 hour hiking commitment, I'm perfectly happy bumbling along not getting everything!)