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Even in your description of an "emotionally attentive" relationship, they have to be aware of what you're doing for them or else how will then tell you that you're wrong? Can it only ever be wrong if the person being acted for detects it, regardless of whether they dislike it?
Hypothetical: "You've been wanting to get stronger, so I've been secretly feeding you HGH. It's what you've wanted so I was doing what I thought best to help you."
All relationships require consent. Trying to reframe "getting consent and confirmation about your partner's wants and boundaries" as some sort of "anxious pestering" or needling is incredibly strange to me. As you get to know them, you don't have to check as often as you come to understand them but they should still be aware of what you're doing.
And do you realize what you're doing here is placing yourself as the standard to debate down at other positions, while presenting your anecdotes as relationship defaults?
It's funny, your hypothetical made me realize that OP's example specifically does involve consent. Your example removed the inherent consent of the situation by making the HGH dosage a secret thing they're doing behind their partner's back.
When my wife has a hard day I'll bake her a batch of her favorite cookies because I know they'll help cheer her up. I don't need to ask consent for that because it's just a thing I'm doing on my own. She always has the option not to eat them when I offer her some if she doesn't want to, and on the rare occasion she turns me down, she knows I'll just bring them to work to share with the office. That's a normal relationship - seeing when your partner needs something from you, and offering it to them - that offering is the point where consent is asked.
Yeah, if I secretly ground up cookies and mixed them into her cereal in the morning in an attempt to force her to eat them, that would be bad. The consent comes at the offering, not at the loving act of choosing to offer it in the first place. This guy is giving consent when he takes the candy, and denying it when he chooses not to take it, just like my wife is giving consent when she takes the cookies, or denying it when she refuses them, which is always a known option.
Yeah and, in my hypothetical, the person accepted the meals, so they must have consented to consuming the HGH too. You seem obstinate in refusing to see how intent shapes consent.
Imagine a person thinks it's in their partner's "best interest" to gain weight and only ever suggests the greasiest, most fattening foods and eateries. It is still incumbent on the partner to maintain their own fitness but the intention behind the person's offers taints the offer and ignores what the partner might wish.
You're assuming intent has to be something dry and contractual. "You had a bad day? I'll make you some cookies." You expressed your intent (assuming you aren't lying to them) and presented the offer: I'm making you cookies to help alleviate your bad day. Specifically in the OP, she recoils from the idea of telling the boyfriend what she's doing and chooses to hide the intent. I said as much in another comment, if she said as little as "I've noticed peanut M&Ms cheer you up when you're sad, you want some?" then she has obtained consent and has informed him what she's doing when she randomly hands him singular M&Ms. I'd wash my hands of this debate. Her reticience does not paint as rosy a picture as that.
Trying to whitewash the situation because "it doesn't seem to be negative" and "she's trying to help" doesn't negate that hiding things is a terrible precedent to set.
Well, wait, are you assuming she's not already saying “I’ve noticed peanut M&Ms cheer you up when you’re sad, you want some?” because I have been. The thing she's been "hiding" is the concept that she's training him like a dog, which as I said in my original comment isn't true; she learned the skills from training dogs, but they are skills that offer the same love and respect you would give a human.
Her friend focused on the fact that she treats dogs and humans the same, thought that meant she was disrespectfully training her boyfriend like one might train a dog, and believed that she was hiding this secret training from her boyfriend, which is just an incorrect assessment of the situation.
So yeah, she could tell her boyfriend that she's treating him like she would a dog, which technically would be the most honest thing to say, but I think it would just lead to him forming a negative association with what is ultimately a caring act, the same way her friend sees it. It's enough to just stick to "I'm giving you candy because you're stressed" rather than "I'm giving you treats in the way that I would give a dog treats."
I am not assuming she made a plain offer.
i keep peanut M&Ms on me w the specific purpose of offering the guy one when i see him, and offering them again whenever i can tell he feels vulnerable.
I admit my inferences are predicated on the context that she is applying dog training but it is entirely core to the discussion. Her quote says not "some [M&Ms]", but "one". She's doling them a singlular M&M at specific instances. Again like trainers do when they're priming a reward for an animal after they perform the right action. And her self-defense is based on the idea that humans aren't that different from dogs and the boyfriend isn't aware of her actions, instead of anything normal like "he said he's glad I'm helping him" or "he's shown he's appreciative that I'm helping distract him from stress".
I'm getting the picture she's more doing "hey <boyfriend>, here's an M&M" when she's training then anything resembling a clear mention of a helpful motive.
I suppose you could be right. I do think it'd be strange not to ask your girlfriend why she randomly gives you a singular M&M all the time.
I agree, but that whole situation is strange to me.