  HUMAN BEING, NOT GUINEA PIG A big part of growing up is learning that we have no right to place demands on or to otherwise play games with the lives and actions of other people.
For some of us, and actually for most of us, this can be a painful lesson to learn. As profound as it sounds, human beings are not guinea pigs to be experimented with. This sounds so basic, so much like a kindergarten lesson, but so many adults are loathe to follow it.
Adults like children have difficulty with ethics. For example, take drug testing. Medical companies take human beings who happen to be poor and then use them to run drug studies. After the study completes, it doesn't matter whether the drugs were helpful or not, the study is done and the drugs are transferred from those who can't afford them to those who can.
It doesn't matter that the poor payed for them with risk. Drug company actions send the message that human life is cheap. As another example, look at reality television. Television companies bait people with money, romance, or fame in order to manipulate them into situations where the greater television audience looks on like so many ancient Romans at a gladiator spectacle. Humanity is gone in a frenzied spectacle of "I win, therefore you must lose. " And it holds true with relationships.
When we fail to accept the autonomy of our partner, when we fail to see them as a real person with hopes, dreams, desires, motivations, and wishes all their own, we are prone to treat our partners as less than human. When their choices conflict with ours, suddenly they can become like guinea pigs that we experiment with in order to discover better means of manipulation towards our own ends. It can be important to occasionally take the time to remind ourselves that the people in our world are human beings and not guinea pigs to be experimented on. 
