This might seem like an obvious question, but it’s not. There are inconsistencies.
Some claim that a boundary is “you do not have a right to do or say this thing *to me*.” They also state “you don’t have a right to do X” is *not* a boundary — it’s controlling.
So far, that’s consistent. The first one is protecting yourself. The second one is trying to possess someone else and control their behavior. Clear difference.
However, the one exception in this community seems to be the messy list. Everyone generally agrees that it’s ok to have a messy list, that it should be respected, and even that people explicitly make one at the start of a relationship.
How does that square with “the whole point of a boundary is protection, not to control the other person”? Or do I misunderstand what a boundary is?
Why does someone get to say “no, you must obey me in this one specific area”? A messy list can’t be argued to be about protecting yourself, because by that logic you can use the very same argument to justify “you can’t sleep with men, only women” as protecting yourself from emotional harm, even though that’s controlling and isn’t a boundary. Why is the messy list different?