Consent is not the be-all and end-all

Interestingly, rugby is under the microscope lately for the increasing long term injuries and yes, DEATHS. Despite players stating it’s part of the game, they all know the risks etc there are still professionals deciding on how best to protect players and how to limit harm. This has meant drastic changes in how the game is played, and more are coming following a spate of deaths. Many other aspects of everyday life are already under limitations in order to protect us, whether we want it or not. This isn’t about stopping sex is it, it’s about society discussing what limits and protections we set. Most aspects of our life are affected by legal and moral boundaries set by society- none of us live in a bubble where our actions don’t affect others. I’m unsure why anyone would take issue with sensible discussions on how to prevent long term injuries like we saw with the 16 year old after group anal, or deaths. That it involves sex, should not mean we back away and hide behind ‘consent’.

If you make it impossible for me to consent to BDSM sex then you make us criminal.

What forms of BDSM sex do you imagine would be criminalised?

The standing legal position (R v Brown, R v Emmett) is that many acts of BDSM violence already potentially are. Your consent is immaterial. But when a man claims "rough sex gone wrong" when a woman dies this seems to go out of the window.

Lol hiding there’s tens of thousands of men looking at images of child abuse that the criminal justice system has no capacity to prosecute- do you really think there’s anyone who’d be interested in long, expensive investigations of a group of middle Englanders who like a whipping every so often?

I was just offering my viewpoint.

Yes. Which is: I want to do X and I will resist any idea that X could be made technically illegal with zero practical effect on me but that would also offer protections to women who don't want to do X and ensure that men who made them do X and killed or injured them could be adequately prosecuted.

We know your view. You'd rather women died and men weren't punished for killing them than to have something you do rendered technically illegal.

It's a charming view.

If you get on a plane knowing you will parachute off and you may get injured and die as a consequence it’s one thing. If you get on a plane and you don’t know you will be parachuting off and will have no choice when you’re shoved out the hatch, perhaps with no parachute on at all, then that’s something else entirely. Women don’t know they’re not just getting on a plane, sitting down with a drink and going on a lovely holiday. Which was the social contract for a millisecond of sexual history.

Please stop making this about you. It isn't.

I was just offering my viewpoint.

I’ll stop posting now, as that’s all I can give.

We don’t live in 1984 (yet). There’s no camera in your bedroom waiting to prosecute you for indulging in consensual bdsm. I don’t understand why you’re so defensive? My current vice is sugar, I don’t take umbrage when people talk about sugar taxes etc, because it isn’t great for me, it’s not good for society and regardless of my enjoyment of it, the consequences are the consequences.

Because a sugar tax is civil rather than criminal.

If you make it impossible for me to consent to BDSM sex then you make us criminal.

Out get-togethers with our friends would be illegal gatherings. Our texts could be monitored for key words. We could be reported by anyone who overheard a conversation.

Which is exactly what life was like for the gay community before homosexuality was legalised.

It's extremely disingenuous to imply that eg holding a knife to someone's threat while you have sex with them is like playing rugby.

Please stop making this about you. It isn't.

Your death and his incarceration affects more than just the two of you

Yes. Just as it would if I died mountaineering, or parachuting, or playing rugby, or driving my car. Especially if my death was attributable in whole or in part to him not paying attention to safety standards. No different.

But that was his defence - that this was normal for them and that he’d just slipped.

What should have happened was the prosecution taking an animal carcass into court and showing g exactly how hard it is to cut something or someone’s throat in the manner he did. You don’t ‘slip’ and do it. It takes considerable force. This isn’t like slashing your thumb cutting carrots for dinner.

But because the rough sex was normalised he was able to use it as a defence. The jury saw rough sex gone wrong

If the rough sex wasnt normalised, the jury would have seen man rapes woman and cuts her throat

The two castings/ways of putting the scenario are VERY different. Rough sex gone wrong implies an accident. Rape and a cut throat implies a dangerous sexual predator.

How we frame things matters.

YY.

This is about consent to violence, not consent to sex.

We don’t live in 1984 (yet). There’s no camera in your bedroom waiting to prosecute you for indulging in consensual bdsm. I don’t understand why you’re so defensive? My current vice is sugar, I don’t take umbrage when people talk about sugar taxes etc, because it isn’t great for me, it’s not good for society and regardless of my enjoyment of it, the consequences are the consequences.

I’ve seen women write that they do not consent to violence in sex and if they’re ever killed in a sex act it did not happen with their consent. It’s absolutely fucked up that people outside of the bdsm community that want nothing to do with it are getting dragged in because it’s being used as noise and a smokescreen for violent abusers to get away with horrific acts.

You can be a virgin, dragged into an alleyway and raped in broad daylight with witnesses and your attacker still get off with the defence that some women like rough, violent sex with strangers so who can say whether he did not believe she consented. The idea that if a safeword was ignored you could prosecute and get a conviction is ludicrous.

You are judging this by your own standards. This isn't about your personal limits. So you do think there are some things which are too risky then? What are they?

It’s personal choice. I can only tell you want the limits of my risk tolerance are, where my personal judgement falls. I can’t claim anything else.

I’m honestly confused by the assertion several people have made that this debate isn’t about personal choices. I can’t see how sex is about anything else.

One woman willingly consents to sex (not BDSM sex, not drunk sex, just sex) with a man where another woman wouldn’t. Doesn’t make the first woman wrong and the second woman right, or vice versa. Maybe the second woman is in a monogamous relationship, or doesn’t find him appealing, or whatever - consent is always about subjective, personal choices.

Holding a knife to someone's throat while you fuck them isn't an "everyday activity".

But that was his defence - that this was normal for them and that he’d just slipped.

What should have happened was the prosecution taking an animal carcass into court and showing g exactly how hard it is to cut something or someone’s throat in the manner he did. You don’t ‘slip’ and do it. It takes considerable force. This isn’t like slashing your thumb cutting carrots for dinner.

But because the rough sex was normalised he was able to use it as a defence. The jury saw rough sex gone wrong

If the rough sex wasnt normalised, the jury would have seen man rapes woman and cuts her throat

The two castings/ways of putting the scenario are VERY different. Rough sex gone wrong implies an accident. Rape and a cut throat implies a dangerous sexual predator.

How we frame things matters.

Yes, I can. I absolutely can understand your misgivings. I respect you for your position. Mine is just different from yours, that’s all.

Because I would only end up dead because either he ignored my consent being withdrawn (murder) or hadn’t been paying enough attention to safety (manslaughter).

You are judging this by your own standards. This isn't about your personal limits. So you do think there are some things which are too risky then? What are they?

Your death and his incarceration affects more than just the two of you.

Ok well fair enough but can you understand my misgivings about inflicting the experience of being raped on a woman I love?

By your logic, why should he face any consequences at all? You think it should be legal to do these things. You consented, it was a tragic accident

Because I would only end up dead because either he ignored my consent being withdrawn (murder) or hadn’t been paying enough attention to safety (manslaughter).

Holding a knife to someone's throat while you fuck them isn't an "everyday activity".

Many many every day practices carry the risk of permanent physical harm or death.

At a time when we are trying to change Male attitudes to entitlement over women’s bodies, I find it troubling that anyone is giving anyone else permission to engage in sex acts with them while they aren’t conscious.

And if I died then he should face the consequences

By your logic, why should he face any consequences at all? You think it should be legal to do these things. You consented, it was a tragic accident.

But we accept that if we did then we would both be at risk. And if I died then he should face the consequences. I’m not seeing that as controversial in any way.

Wow. Not controversial? So you want society to look the other way while you engage in violent practices which may result in your death and the incarceration of the person who caused it- at our expense. We’re also supposed to ignore the wider implications on society tolerating levels of violence because its sexually stimulates certain people.

I’ve given my Dom explicit permission to penetrate me whilst I sleep. It’s in writing. We’re both comfortable with that.