Consent is not the be-all and end-all

FFS when we’re seriously debating whether or not men have the right, if women like it, to engage in what American soldiers did to Iraqis and Afghanis at abu-Graib and Bagram, for which both Bush and Cheney are wanted in The Hague -- the conversation around consent and around kink has become utterly bankrupt.

Quite. There has to be a limit. There really does. How can we try people for war-crimes, but say the same conduct is absolutely fine and a healthy expression of sexuality in a different context?

I am also conscious that i set every single boundary on what we do and don’t do together. We very careful set out upfront to define where my limits are.

This is key, perhaps.

But at some stage along that spectrum, it turns into this:

www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/live-solo-45-rape-trial-2408819

(the content of this is quite distressing)

Yes yes yes and more yes. Why do we condone violent and sadistic behaviour just because someone happens to get sexual pleasure out of it? It's still violence. If you get aroused from strangling someone until they pass out, you're probably not a particularly nice person and no nicer than someone who strangles people without getting off on it sexually. I am sure those in the BDSM community will vehmently disagree but the point is that the prevalence of porn is making this mainstream. Choking and slapping and violent sex is seen as normal now and so many young girls feel pressured into doing it. On paper they are 'consenting', but what sort of right-thinking person enjoys being injured. If you find you do, chances are you need as much help as the person who enjoys inflicting harm.

I should also add that pain is only one very minor aspect of our BDSM sex. For me, it’s all about having a safe place in which to entirely give away control.

I have an extremely high powered and successful career, and i’m a single parent, and submitting to my boyfriend is the only time I’m entirely without responsibilities. For me it’s a place of calm and freedom.

I am also conscious that i set every single boundary on what we do and don’t do together. We very careful set out upfront to define where my limits are. Within those limits he has freedom to do with my body as he wishes, but I define them.

I’m in a BDSM relationship. I’m submissive. I like pain. I have no idea why, but i do.

We practice all of the safety and after care in the world, and one of our golden rules is no permanent harm. We have never and would never practice any of the acts that Sonic outlined in her post of 18:34.

Early are you aware of this study in the British Medical Journal which showed that, of the teenage girls who were engaging in anal sex, none of them consented to it. They found it painful. They said no, but the guy did it anyway?

So I'm very pleased for you that you enjoy it. But girls aren't getting into anal sex because they enjoy it, they are doing it despite not wanting to and finding it painful, and ending up injured. Because somewhere along the way, boys have started to think anal via rape or coercion is standard sexual practice, and that girls being in pain, injured and in tears during sex is "normal".

bmjopen.bmj.com/content/4/8/e004996

Extreme libertariansim is not progressive. This is the salient point you seem incapable of understanding.

EJ I only mentioned anal becuase feminists on here on a previous thread were saying the same about anal sex, and were saying exactly what I said to the woman who said they enjoyed it.

Doesn't Ms Bunbury have a chapter on Dead Fish in Missionary?

Ah, Dead Fish in Missionary, the lost Faulkner novel.

anyone that lays like a dead fish in missionary and let’s your husband go on top that you’re really doing woman a disservice

Subtlety* is not some people's strong point, is it?

*by subtlety, I mean off the scale misogyny, natch.

Applying critical analysis is not the same as policing bedrooms. Looking st legal procedure that now demands the state prove a negative is not the same as removing women’s bodily autonomy.

I think you may be going over some heads here.

It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his sex life salary depends upon his not understanding it!

Can anyone remember the men who were charged with something or other in the 80s after hammering nails into each other's penises which I just tried to google and there isn't enough eye bleach?

anyone that lays like a dead fish in missionary and let’s your husband go on top that you’re really doing woman a disservice

Right, because if we don’t like being physically abused when we engage in intercourse we must just be boring old hags who don’t know how to have good sex. What a lazy boring and tired old response that is.

My opinions are just as valid as yours thanks,

What on earth makes you think that?

If I have decided that your opinions are driven by misogyny then they are without credit.

there are some acts it should be legally impossible to consent to.

YY. Anyone who is prepared to do these things to another person should expect consequences may follow for them. Apart from just the risk of them causing serious harm to another person, which they obviously have to accept.

I really have no time for derailing on such an important issue. It’s been made abundantly clear we are talking about acts which cause damage and harm to a person, a follow-on from a post about a girl being so damaged she needs a colostomy bag.

Early, you may well enjoy anal sex when you do it. Good for you. But I am afraid I don't believe anyone enjoys getting beaten to the point of broken bones/choked/nails through their breasts/their vagina and anus torn/humiliated to the point of hysterical tears/slapped unconscious/shat on and made to eat it, etc.

Those are actions of torture and abuse. They don't become OK because the man gets an erection from doing it.

If real life waterboarding sadomasochism is the hill you really want to die on, Earlywalker, knock yourself out.

EJennings I just want to applaud your excellent post.

For causing, not focusing