Are you suggesting that “I prefer that you ask me for things and I get to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’” is a submissive posture in general? Or is this limited to the kinds of romantic/sexual contexts you’re talking about here?
Either way, can you point me at some references for this claim? It seems pretty counterintuitive to me.
References for a subjective evaluation? Er, no. At best I might be able to pull some evidence together about how the average person evaluates the situation.
But let’s turn this on its head. Do you think the US president’s veto power gives the president a dominant power position in terms of legislature? Who has more power over legislature—the president, who can say no, or the legislature, who get to determine the questions the president gets to say “No” to?
References for a subjective evaluation? Er, no. At best I might be able to pull some evidence together about how the average person evaluates the situation.
(blink) OK. If what you mean by “dominant” and “submissive” is a claim about how people feel about a situation, rather than a claim about who is able to implement their preferences, then I misunderstood your initial point and am content to drop the subject here.
To answer your question, though: in practice the legislative veto situation is a lot more complicated than you present it here, because there are lots of preferences had by both sides that have almost nothing to do with whether the law gets passed or not, and often the law itself is simply a stalking horse.
But leaving the specifics of veto politics aside, I certainly agree that there are contexts in which the person framing the request has more practical power (in the sense of being able to implement their preferences despite opposition) than the person acceding to or denying the request.
There are also contexts in which the reverse is true.
Are you suggesting that “I prefer that you ask me for things and I get to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’” is a submissive posture in general? Or is this limited to the kinds of romantic/sexual contexts you’re talking about here?
Either way, can you point me at some references for this claim? It seems pretty counterintuitive to me.
References for a subjective evaluation? Er, no. At best I might be able to pull some evidence together about how the average person evaluates the situation.
But let’s turn this on its head. Do you think the US president’s veto power gives the president a dominant power position in terms of legislature? Who has more power over legislature—the president, who can say no, or the legislature, who get to determine the questions the president gets to say “No” to?
(blink) OK. If what you mean by “dominant” and “submissive” is a claim about how people feel about a situation, rather than a claim about who is able to implement their preferences, then I misunderstood your initial point and am content to drop the subject here.
To answer your question, though: in practice the legislative veto situation is a lot more complicated than you present it here, because there are lots of preferences had by both sides that have almost nothing to do with whether the law gets passed or not, and often the law itself is simply a stalking horse.
But leaving the specifics of veto politics aside, I certainly agree that there are contexts in which the person framing the request has more practical power (in the sense of being able to implement their preferences despite opposition) than the person acceding to or denying the request.
There are also contexts in which the reverse is true.