Consent is not the be-all and end-all

These things aren’t tolerated by the BDSM community. Not for one second. Why do you think we do tolerate them?

I’m not talking about the BDSM community.

I’m talking about the wider societal view. which isn’t particularly informed by the actual BDSM community, but by porn, and the media. That’s what drives this. When a defence lawyer uses the ‘rough sex gone wrong’ defence, they aren’t doing it because the jury is made up of people into BDSM with knowledge of boundarie. They’re doing it because the jury is made up of average people living in a porn soaked world where images of violence in sex pervade many forms of media. And this is normalised.

And some things shouldn’t be tolerated at all - torture, rape, abuse, involvement of minors, or imposition of a paraphilic behaviour on unwilling participants in public.

These things aren’t tolerated by the BDSM community. Not for one second. Why do you think we do tolerate them?

Who's going to stop that woman from doing exactly what she wants in the bedroom?
I think the point is if the woman reports rape/sexual assault there are some acts it should be legally impossible to consent to.
In itself that should make doms/sadists a hell of a lot more cautious about who they dominate or hurt.
I believe the law is meant to be that it is impossible to use consent as a defence focusing harm, but that doesn't appear to apply to men penetrating women for some reason.

This. The state isn’t going to police individuals in their bedrooms, so in reality if you are two consenting adults nothing will stop you.

What needs to change is the way society seems this acceptable/desireable because that’s what’s changing out window of what’s oknand that’s what is having negative effects.

The cases recently where a jury or judge has accepted, or where the defence has used, the ‘yeah she was well up for it, we only just met m’kid but she wanted it and I slipped’ have all been down to increased societal acceptance.

If it wasn’t pushed so widely in society, that defence would have been unusable - it would have been deemed unthinkable that a woman consented to or wanted this. It’s that societal shift that’s driving individual cases. Not individual private people doing things in the bedrooms privately.

The same shift is being seen on multiple things - I’m thinking the mermaids/BDSM calendar for example. And the fact that sex has gone from something women and men do for mutual pleasure to something done to women.

We need a shift back to where what people did in private was tolerated - not expected of everyone, and certainly not celebrated. And some things shouldn’t be tolerated at all - torture, rape, abuse, involvement of minors, or imposition of a paraphilic behaviour on unwilling participants in public.

I am not a victim.

Our relationship is very, very mutually respectful. Our sex life is very, very mutually pleasurable. It also sometimes includes elements of dominance and pain.

As it happens, I don’t enjoy anal so we don’t do anal.

I utterly reject the assumption on this thread that I am not giving, and am incapable of, enthusiastic, willing and informed consent to the acts that we choose to engage in together.

I also deeply, deeply, resent men who murder women claiming that they were is BDSM relationships and it was BDSM that killed their partners. No BDSM practitioner I have ever come across has any desire to do lasting or permanent damage to his or her partner.

Surely if someone expects to be able to choke, beat and otherwise brutalise a fellow human being can surely take me calling them a shit for it? Double standards much!?

Sorry, bold fail.

I just wanted to agree totally. I'm so glad this thread was started! What can we do?

The word “moral” has been tainted by association with the religious right. But long before the evangelical movement, there was something generally accepted in community called “the moral imperative.”

*Intentionally inflicting pain on another person, for one’s own pleasure, is not a part of that moral imperative. Sexualising domination, in a world of power hierarchies based on sex, race, and class, can never be liberating. It only reifies what we’re trying, outside the bedroom,
to dismantle.

Unconsciousness has to be raised as much as consciousness does.*

This is so true.

The notion that some woman has to undergo god knows what to earn that level of intimacy is batshit madness to me.

AntiSocialInjusticePacifist that positive reinforcement training is how you're supposed to train a dog.
The thinking is that if you're randomly nice to a dog they don't understand why and try to associate it with what they're doing at the time. So if you laugh when your dog barks at the telly and pet it, the dog learns that barking at the telly is the right thing to do.
And you shouldn't praise or pet your dog unless they do something for you, which is why many people tell their dog to sit before they give it a hug or stroke it.
This is the same training but for women, and those women are not only treated worse than a dog, but should never be in that mindset to begin with.
I'm sure many of us have struck lucky with a partner or previous partner (or thought we did at the time) and wondered what he/she saw in us - this is that taken to extremes, no?
Feeling unworthy of affection and intimacy, sneering at "vanilla sex", it all makes sense really.

I’ve been involved with girls who are extremely sub in the BDSM (well extremely from my point of view), they have explained aftercare to me, but where I struggled with it is you are supposed to be all cuddly and chatty, supportive and caring, but honestly shouldn’t that be what 98% of a relationship should be like. The notion that some woman has to undergo god knows what to earn that level of intimacy is batshit madness to me.

freed themselves from BDSM
I'm going to look into that, it'd be interesting to see it from survivors' perspectives.

I wonder if that "leniency" would apply if the person didn't have a terminal illness at all, but the person who killed them said they wanted to die?

"We don't even allow people to assist loved ones who have a terminal illness, no quality of life at all, and are desperate to die. They consent to their own death, and it's still a crime to do it."

Common sense usually prevails in these cases though, very few are prosecuted and the sentences are much lower if they do.

do we accept that she wanted to die during painful sex?

Whether or not we accept this has no bearing on whether we prosecute the perpetrator.

Precisely.

We don't even allow people to assist loved ones who have a terminal illness, no quality of life at all, and are desperate to die. They consent to their own death, and it's still a crime to do it.

Women should be given the same protection.

If you can't consent to being cut with a knife during sex play then it can't be used as a defence for a "rough sex gone wrong" murder. It's not like you could police anyone's sex life, so people would still do it, it just would not longer be a defence.

This is a blindingly obvious point that flies, like Concorde, over some people's heads.

If you can't consent to being cut with a knife during sex play then it can't be used as a defence for a "rough sex gone wrong" murder. It's not like you could police anyone's sex life, so people would still do it, it just would not longer be a defence.

Exactly.

Sounds like self harm by proxy to me

And I think it often is.

I can't imagine many 'female dom chops off male subs testicles as he asked for it, he subsequently bleeds to death' being accepted as 'accidental consensual sex death, nothing to see here' type thing in the way females being killed by blokes are, despite there apparently being many more female dom than male.... No fucking way.

I agree.

If you can't consent to being cut with a knife during sex play then it can't be used as a defence for a "rough sex gone wrong" murder. It's not like you could police anyone's sex life, so people would still do it, it just would not longer be a defence.

Quite.

I can't imagine many 'female dom chops off male subs testicles as he asked for it, he subsequently bleeds to death' being accepted as 'accidental consensual sex death, nothing to see here' type thing in the way females being killed by blokes are, despite there apparently being many more female dom than male.... No fucking way.

I'm guessing the responsible aftercare involves cleaning and binding wounds. Is that part of the enjoyment and of feeling cherished and looked after?
Sounds like self harm by proxy to me