There's *one* voluntary hierarchy

"One way or another, any government which remains in power is a representative government. If your city government is a crooked machine, then it is because you and your neighbors prefer it that way - prefer it to the effort of running your own affairs."

"Hitler's government was a popular government; the vast majority of Germans preferred the rule of gangsters to the effort of thinking and doing for themselves. They abdicated their franchise."

Robert A. Heinlein, Take Back Your Government

Dom/sub is not hierarchy, it's a consensual relationship between people.

Hierarchy is an institutional set of involuntary command/control relationships

Dom/sub is not hierarchy
Yes daddy. Explain sexual psychology to me harder.

Please femdom me involuntarily 🥺

Are you agreeing to this voluntarily?

If I want to learn to bake bread I voluntarily accept the bakery te4acher as my superior in this matter for the duration of the lessons. If the first person had said voluntary hierarchies are the only valid ones they might have had a point!

Expertise merely refers to one’s knowledge or skill in a particular field, but my understanding of CPR or ability to bake shortbread cookies does not make me an authority over you. Other than the conflation of force and authority, this is one of the most common confusions people have about anarchism, made worse by the fact that there are some anarchists who still use authority to refer to both command and expertise just because Bakunin did. Personally, I find that creates needless confusion. If you’re using the word authority to describe everything from slavery to knowing how to build a bridge, then why use the word at all? Just use the word expertise when you’re talking about expertise. Listening to medical advice isn’t a hierarchy. Having expertise doesn’t give me the right to command you unless I hold a position in a hierarchical power structure that grants me that authority. As Bakunin himself said:
…we ask nothing better than to see men endowed with great knowledge, great experience, great minds, and, above all, great hearts, exert over us a natural and legitimate influence, freely accepted and never imposed in the name of any official authority whatsoever, celestial or terrestrial.
— Andrewism, How Anarchy Works » Dissecting Authority (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrTzjaXskUU)
here's my reply to another comment like yours:
that wouldn't really be a hierarchy because there's no authority involved. if you're deferring to someone's skill, that's not authority, because you have the freedom to do that and it is voluntary. you or the other people can leave that association at any time.
a hierarchy is, as CrocodilloBombardino@piefed.social so sufficiently just put it, "an institutional set of involuntary command/control relationships".
- No True Scotsman would ever have a hierarchy!
- I know it's semantics (er...is it diction?) and at the end of the day pretty pedantic, but this is the first time I've seen the suggestion that hierarchy necessitates authority, and that authority necessitates compulsion (or an institution, or a command/control relationship). I mean yeah, they definitely have those connotations, for sure. And maybe in the context of anarchist theory, this is their functional definition.
  But in a general sense, we still have hierarchies that are completely outside of the realm of social organization, like top down hierarchical categorization of...things...right? Like, stuff? And similarly, we have authorities that aren't necessarily relevant to compulsion, like an authority on a particular niche subject. I guess we're compelled to believe them, but, I dunno...
  I'm kinda thinking out loud here. But I guess if I met, say, a master woodworker, and she was guiding me through building a bookshelf, I'd still say she is the authority over my actions, even if I decided to do something contrary to her commands. For sure, she has the right to tell me how to build the bookshelf -- she is the expert, I recognize the authority over me in this matter -- and she retains the authority even if I defy her. Idk maybe I'm talking about a different definition of authority.
I unironically, have no idea if this post is a satire or not.

C

A

B

What kind of hierarchy is this?

I prefer horizontally-hierarchial BDSM.

A console of kinksters decide how best to please you.

A lot of people here take jokes seriously.

Is that surprising at all, though? Leftists take stuff like this very seriously to begin with, but also leftist spaces are more likely to be populated by a higher number of autistic (hi!) and other ND people who don't always know (or care) when something is a joke unless it's literally stated in the text of the joke.
Also also, jokes shouldn't necessarily be granted immunity from serious analysis. It was a thought provoking post, that's a good thing too, right?

Is there a nuance to usage of the word hierarchy that I'm not understanding in this context?

Like if I invite a bunch of friends over to help me move into a new apartment, is there a hierarchy because I'm telling everyone where to put the boxes? If my pal Sarah drives a truck for work, so I entrust her to load the van with two other people, is that a hierarchy?

I'm not asking this to be a smartass, I'd just like to understand if there is a meaningful difference between hierarchy and deferring to someone's skill in a particular domain.

a hierarchy (from Greek, for 'rule of priests') is a structure which creatures superiors and subordinates.
Like if I invite a bunch of friends over to help me move into a new apartment, is there a hierarchy because I’m telling everyone where to put the boxes?
if your friends want to help you, then they're helping you. they of course needs to defer to you for instructions, because you're the one who knows what you need help with. if they're doing so without the guarantee/demand of anything in return (because they care about you), then this is mutual aid.
no, that wouldn't really be a hierarchy because there's no authority involved. if you're deferring to someone's skill, that's not authority, because you have the freedom to do that and it is voluntary. you or the other people can leave that association at any time.
a hierarchy is, as @CrocodilloBombardino@piefed.social so succinctly just put it, "an institutional set of involuntary command/control relationships".
- because you have the freedom to do that and it is voluntary
  So what's the agreed upon definition of "having the freedom" and "voluntary" here? Because even under an authoritarian government, you can technically go against the authorities, but there will be consequences to doing so. What level of consequences do we consider to be acceptable for these purposes? Or is it not a question of level of severity of the consequences?
  An example of what I'm thinking of is a situation where you defer to someone else for their expertise because maybe they're the only doctor available who can treat your illness, so you need to do as they say to get better. If you refuse, then you die. Is that voluntary? I can choose to die, so the "freedom" is there, but the consequences are severe.

I was about to say "what about therapy" and then I remembered how almost every therapist besides me does therapy (and how they react when they learn how I do things...). I know I can't eliminate all the spooks, but I do try my best

That's so vague tell me more.
- It's all so second nature to me at this point that I had to spend a good bit of time thinking about all the ways I incorporate my anarchist values in my practice. I'm sure there are more, but these are the most significant ones I could think of
  No insurance, so I'm not forced to pathologize my clients and I'm not beholden to a third-party constraining what we're allowed to work on, etc
  Extremely low cost, with no means testing, and I even accept bartering
  Full therapeutic self-disclosure to help dissolve the power dynamic
  Conduct sessions in neutral or client-centered environments (I have no public office- I meet clients virtually, outdoors, or in their home)
  Peer accountability with a fellow anarchist in the medical field
  Consent and boundaries are iterative and explicit
  Session structure, modalities, etc, are collaboratively negotiated
  Edit: I realize this list probably sounds normal and benign to leftists, but libs react very strongly to these things

But the sub is the one in control? Safe words and all that.

My safe word is harder

This guy fetishes.

Fetishes and kinks are different things.
- That greatly depends on who you ask. There are plenty of kinksters who make no distinction between those terms.

This was probably just a bit or whatever, but I feel like it would be pretty easy for someone who actually thought all hierarchy was involuntary to argue that acting according to biological imperatives (such as the need/desire to engage in kink dynamics like femdom) are not voluntary. We can't choose what sexual orientation we have, either.

Those fundamental desires are imposed upon us by our brain chemistry, whether we want them to be or not. You can consent to who you engage with, but you can't consent to experiencing those needs in the first place.

If you squint hard enough, that's similar logic as when people claim that capitalism is fine because you can "choose" to get a different job.

I can literally just point to the republican party.

Re-education camps for nazis? 🤷‍♂️