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  %MUTUAL COMPETENT FREE ADULT CONSENT MORALITY SEX+940714
                   %BALANCED POWER RESPECT EQUALITY 940714

     Often legalists and moralizers have sought to control
human  behavior by the imposition of rules and regulations
which  are  not  related  to  the  desires,   wishes   and
aspirations   of  the  regulated  people.    They   divert
attention  away  from questions of competent adult  mutual
consent and towards external definitions of what behaviors
are  proper  and what behaviors  are  improper---generally
ignoring  people's  desires  as if  they  were  irrelevant
because  they  do not contribute to the  possibilities  of
control to be exercised by legalists and moralizers.

     Coerced consent  is never true consent.    In unusual
circumstances  consent by a relatively powerless person to
do  what  a more powerful person suggests is not true  and
full consent---even if there  are  no  signs  of threat or
coercion.      The   more   powerful   person   has   more
responsibility to be sensitive to the needs,  desires, and
wishes of the less powerful person,  than vice versa.  The
powerful should not seek consent from the less powerful to
do what is risky, unusual,  questionable, controversial or
of doubtful wisdom---and pretend that consent can  be true
and full consent under such circumstances.   Greater power
is usually associated with greater age, status, education,
wealth  and formal  position/responsibilities.    Powerful
people  need  to  take care not to abuse  their  power  in
getting what appears to be consent---but which is not true
and  full  consent because of the unavoidable coercion  of
their greater power.

     We need, however, to also recognize that shifting the
focus   of  our  attention  away  from   consensual/shared
integrative desires --- to conformal considerations, sets
the  stage  for  people to be  manipulated  by  colluders,
addicts  and their codependent supporters.   Prescriptions
and  proscriptions  often  show no  respect  for  people's
consensual/shared  desires---even  if the people  involved
are  healthy  adults  of nearly  equal  levels  of  power.
Preoccupations   with  conformity  can   become   ultimate
concerns  and conformity can become the focus of idolatry.
The  promptings  of   Holy Spirit can  be  blocked  and
occasions  of  internal  conflicts  generated  within  the
victims of conformal requirements/expectations.

                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
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