Threads on Consent in O&P

I believe that the acknowledgement of property, especially private property, is a universal part of human nature. Some cultures may disagree about what can be property, but they all agree that some things are property. For instance, a nomadic tribesman may consider that land cannot be owned by anyone, but he's very clear who his knife belongs to, and if you steal it, he and any bystanders will agree with the justice in him recovering it by force. Moreover, this applies equally well to Stone Age hunters with flint knives, and people in their kitchen today with carving knives.

Whether or not you agree that the right to your own property is a universal ethical principle that derives directly from human nature, I hope we can agree that as O&P is defined in terms of property, it's natural to use property rights (of whatever origin) as its ethical foundation.

The manifesto then derives consent from there. People are born owning themselves, under the guardianship of parents. As adults, people have the right to hand over some or all of their self-ownership. Respect for property rights requires that O&P must be entered with the freely given informed consent of the submissive.

One advantage of this approach is that it is deeply respectful of people's self-determination. This is in contrast to cases like Spanner, where the European Convention on Human Rights allows governments to nanny their citizens, including imprisoning them for some kinds of consensual BDSM done on their own bodies.