Consent is not the be-all and end-all

AntiSocialInjusticePacifist
I only mentioned it because it think it makes us feel better to imagine we'd take revenge if something like that happened to one of our nearest and dearest because the reality is we are pretty powerless.
The insurance idea would never get off the ground but I think it's interesting that we can accept responsibility for driving around in a ton of metal, and require pre-training, supervision, sobriety, insurance etc for doing that but anything sex based is a free for all.
I've been trying to think of another activity that has the risk of injury etc that is both legal and requires no regulation or insurance and I can't think of one.

FlyingOink of course your right I’m not an especially violent man, but I would give it a good long think, and no I wouldn’t want to kill them just ensure they wouldn’t be capable of inflicting similar in the future.

That whole story has me angry beyonf belief.

FlyingOink I actually thought of the idea of general sex insurance a ways ago. I can’t get behind the wheel of a tonne of motorcar without insurance, because well it’s dangerous.

I think the whole insurance thing could be extended to children too. So if some chap unintentionally knocked up a woman then the insurance could be leveraged to pay for the costs incurred in raising the kid. Make it like the car whereby it’s illegal to even have sex without insurance.

I like sex as much as the next man but child poverty, and all these women sustaining life changing injuries are not acceptable consequences.

Ereshkigal exactly, because you can't consent to being killed. But somehow you can consent to having your genitals damaged?

I’d be taking the law into my own hands and ensuring each and every one of those men were physically incapable of inflicting similar trauma for the rest of their lives.
You say that, and tbh I'd say that too - but you wouldn't be able to do it in real life, it's not that easy to hunt down strangers. And what would you do with them? Kill them? If you hospitalised the first, you'd never get to the other two, would you?
I'm not being deliberately difficult - I always used to think like this but I've seen it happen to other people, I've known men who have had things happen to their daughters, for example - and the incandescent and impotent rage those men feel destroys their entire family because they can't live out their revenge fantasy.
So even thinking you'd do all that is self-soothing. It makes it less scary that it happens because you imagine you'll do something about it if it does.
Life doesn't work like that.

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.

Fuck it I’m gonna come out and say it and I know this is probably toxically masculine of me, but if I was the father of the 16 year old and those men did not see the inside of the courtroom I’m afraid I’d be taking the law into my own hands and ensuring each and every one of those men were physically incapable of inflicting similar trauma for the rest of their lives.

I’d then present myself to the nearest police station and confess to precisely what I’d done, and serve whatever time the court deemed necessary for me to serve. A lesser known purpose of the prison system is to protect criminals from the society they have wronged.

At its very basic the root of Anglo-Saxon law that we are heir to in the West surrounds the concepts of harm/loss. Has harm occurred to this 16 year old? It most definately has and the question of consent really only speaks to the severity of intent.

why can’t the “risks” be shared? Ok a sub may be at serious risk of injury/death. Why is it so incredibly bad for doms to be at very real legal risk?
Dom Insurance!

What is torture to you, may be pleasure to them. If there is obviously injury such as bleach poured over them, then obviously that is different but that is not general practice within BDSM.
Yes and BDSM practitioners do tend to negotiate and train etc. But it's not just the "experts" who are carrying out these activities.
If a group of people can do unsafe things in a managed way, to mitigate against risk, (which I'm not 100% convinced of but I know they do make an effort) then should they be allowed to do the dangerous sexual stuff but amateurs aren't?
That would be impossible to police.
I think you're right about the justice system, there needs to be a huge amount of evidence of consent for certain activities. But how do you prove consent? A porn actress might sign a load of release forms and still feel like she was abused and taken advantage of on set. If I was going to inflict damage on another person (which I wouldn't, but as an example) I'd want to be damn sure it's what they wanted. But, ironically, I would never do it anyway; it's self-selecting as an activity.
So have we got a Dom problem? If experienced BDSM practitioners recognise subs as being in charge, and doms have to train up and have to provide aftercare etc then what happens when an inexperienced dom decides to try out this stuff on an inexperienced sub? Outside the "protection" of the BDSM community, in a room somewhere, after a tinder date or in the middle of an unhealthy relationship.
Why do we allow the hobbyists to dictate what is sexually acceptable - if we were to ban those extreme activities (for example) is it really any great loss? 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.

@flyingoink I do believe he is a savage. It worries me that this girl bought into the Christian Grey message - if I give up my sexual agency and ‘consent’ to sexual violence, then this older, wealthy man will provide for my needs. He openly and proudly admitted to me that he would buy her drugs and alcohol to ‘enhance’ her sexual experience while he remained sober himself. I struggled to see how it was possible for a vulnerable woman to ‘consent’ to violent sexual acts while being totally incapacitated.

I was having a conversation with DP a couple of weeks ago. He admitted that while he was a teen Britney videos were wank fodder. Recently he went on a well known pornography streaming site and was horrified by the rape fantasy/incest/fisting and so forth that came up on the first page. He turned off his computer and had a memory wank. I suspect he’s in the minority.

I really hope I can educate my son to critically examine violent porn and look beyond it when it comes to his early sexual experience.

That’s not general practice amongst thinking and feeling human beings. Look if you want to practice sexy fun times in the BDSM scene more power to you, but why can’t the “risks” be shared? Ok a sub may be at serious risk of injury/death. Why is it so incredibly bad for doms to be at very real legal risk?

That should just reinforce good practice surely? Why should one group get to be insulated from negative repercussions when things go wrong?

I’m broadly speaking liberarian, but with liberty comes responsibility. I don’t care what someone does or does not consent to you are always responsible for the harm that you do.
I agree completely but what does that responsibility look like in reality?
If the victim never presses charges?
If the victims never links her MH issues with her sex life?
If the injuries were sustained at a play venue by a stranger?
If the victim plays down her injuries or sees them with pride?
If the aggressor never has to pay for the victim's treatment, support the victim's mental health, etc.
Then we're back to deaths - and there could come a case where the victim was on video, enthusiastically consenting, right up until she dies. What do we do then?
Do we infantilise a grown adult and assume nobody of right mind could consent to that, or do we accept that she wanted to die during painful sex?
I honestly don't know what the right answer is. You can't consent to being killed and eaten, that was established. So where is the line? Can you consent to a prolapse but not a broken arm?
Who picks up the pieces afterwards?

But raping someone with their 'consent' isn't rape? Torturing someone with their 'consent' isn't torture? Have you even heard yourself?

By definition, rape is without their consent, try thinking about what you type without you try the ‘have you heard yourself’ crap. What is torture to you, may be pleasure to them. If there is obviously injury such as bleach poured over them, then obviously that is different but that is not general practice within BDSM.

You can't have it both ways. Which is it to be?
Good point.
I wonder if it's like Catch-22. To consent to serious assault shows that you're not well enough to consent at all. I don't mean that to sound insulting, but if someone is driving nails through your skin whilst they electrocute you and restrict your breathing there is a high risk of injury or death. Same with waterboarding, vacuum suits, group anal, piercing play, knife play, etc.
Some is obviously more dangerous than others. I can't help but wonder why we accept that amount of risk being legal because someone enjoys it sexually, when we wouldn't accept a community doing something as dangerous as a hobby.
That fella that climbs up buildings with no harness etc. He gets arrested every time. As many people as are impressed with him are disgusted with him for putting himself and the people underneath him on the ground at risk, tying up police officers etc.
But when it's "kinky sex" we don't seem to mind?

I’m broadly speaking liberarian, but with liberty comes responsibility. I don’t care what someone does or does not consent to you are always responsible for the harm that you do. Consent violation adds an extra layer of unpleasantness to wanting to or being willing to harm others.

Also considering how can we in good conscience unleash a generation of young women into a sexual arena where the majority of what they are learning centers men and male pleasure? There really did seem to be some movement in the 90s as to what felt good for women.

Reflecting on this I’m wondering if all this sexual violence is coming from some massive repression that’s going on somewhere? When things get repressed they tend to bubble up manifoldly worse further down the line.

The fact people are sustaining lifelong injuries is proof positive there is something majorly wrong somewhere. I’d really like to tackle
this before my son is old enough to be corrupted by it.

The more outlandish the practice, the more proof should be required of enthusiastic ongoing consent. Post death, that burden of proof should be incredibly high.
So yes, early you have a point there. I did post earlier that in one survey of BDSM practitioners 3/4 of women were subs; most BDSM people are submissive but this is more pronounced in women.
Thesepreciousthings if what that man said was true, then he's a savage. Ironically he's probably some poor girl's real-life Christian Grey (older, good job, sexual sadist).

Murdering someone with their ‘consent’ is still murder.

But they're not saying the victims consented to murder. They're saying their victims consented to risky sexual practices and then oops, butterfingers! It was an accident! Rough sex gone wrong.

Murdering someone with their ‘consent’ is still murder.

But raping someone with their 'consent' isn't rape? Torturing someone with their 'consent' isn't torture?

Have you even heard yourself?

You can't have it both ways. Which is it to be?

@funkyfunkybeat12 he is a twisted, horrible man. The most worrying thing for me is that as someone in a position of power (as a lawyer) his beliefs are elevated and maintained by vulnerable people. He is very intelligent and articulate which makes his ideas seem well thought through and valid. I just fear for the young women who become enraptured by him, of which there appear to be many.

I remember having a boyfriend when I was 19. While he always took the time to give me pleasure, he bought a lot of ideas he’d seen in porn into the bedroom. Choking and golden showers to name but two. I accepted these behaviours as central to the power dynamic in our relationship, even though I felt uncomfortable and degraded. In the decade that has passed since, widely available mainstream porn has become increasingly violent and dangerous. I would hate to be a teenage girl today, accepting violence as part of perceived consent. Especially given that the vast majority of teenagers do not like to deviate from what is presented as the norm in a desperate attempt for approval. Furthermore, sex education and education as a whole does not encourage critical thought.

But this is the problem, Early. Men are using "consent" as a legal defence for putting women's lives in danger when they are put on trial for killing them

The problem is the criminal justice system not the kink. Do you think if this woman had been ‘kink shamed’ she would not have been murdered? Is this not just another way of making it the woman’s fault if she’s murdered?
Murdering someone with their ‘consent’ is still murder.

The interesting thing is that many dominants are not sadists.

Even ones who engage in relatively heavy pain play, flogging, caning, etc. And I am sure that sounds completely ridiculous to you, as you are not a masochist. Some dominants are into seeing the elation their submissive gets from the pain. They have attended classes and read extensively to know how much pain and where is safe, and stop when they have had enough even if the submissive is begging for more.

The thing is that a decent person wouldn't be able to inflict pain on another person. Even if someone begged me to do it and said they loved it, I wouldn't be able to punch someone hard in the face for instance. Because I am not violent.

There's always the argument 'you just don't understand it'. No, I don't and there are lots of activities that I don't understand because I have never partaken in them, such as rape, domestic violence, sexual abuse, mugging, killing, stealing etc. I still know it's extremely wrong though, and it's not just because the victim doesn't consent to it. It's also wrong because the perpetrator feels its okay to do it and doesn't have a strong aversion to that kind of behaviour. So even if in a BDSM relationship, the sub is apparently fine with it, it's a problem that the dom feels able to inflict pain in a way that most people wouldn't be able to.

As for thesepreciousthings your friend sounds like a sick sick fuck. Absolutely vile. Reminds me of the Natalie Connolly case where the defendant was able to argue that the victim wanted a spray bottle inserted into her vagina, causing internal bleeding. Sickening. There have to be things that nobody can ever be thought capable of consenting to ever.

You can consent to sex, and change your mind, or not want anything other than that and if you’re wishes are not listened to then it is assault and/or abuse.

But this is the problem, Early. Men are using "consent" as a legal defence for putting women's lives in danger when they are put on trial for killing them. And there is no way of knowing what happened when the woman is dead. But still it's considered possible/reasonable that the man was acting on the woman's wishes in a rough sex or BDSM scenario and that he is not guilty.

Even when he is very likely to be lying, if it can't be proven that she didn't "consent" to being strangled, have a knife put to her throat etc there will be no murder conviction.

And the reason for this is the normalisation of rough painful sex as something everyone has. Because porn.

This thread makes me think of a male ‘friend’ I had who was 20 years my senior. He had a long term partner and he would regularly complain that the PIV sex he was having with her wasn’t fulfilling so he sought lovers who were my age and younger. He had one who he claimed had become ‘enlightened ‘ after reading 50 Shades. He would enthusiastically tell me that she enjoyed being choked, anally fisted and waterboarded in a car park while groups of male strangers would gather round the car and masturbate over her. The woman suffered an anal prolapse during one of these exchanges and he believed it was a natural consequence of her so called ‘sexual agency’.

Worryingly, he also believed that the majority of women who reported rape were making false accusations against men in order to shame them.

He was also a lawyer.

Needless to say, I haven’t seen him in three years. I have however remained ‘friends’ with him on Facebook. He regularly posts about rape cases that have made their way into mainstream media and attempts to dismantle the ideas of consent to prove that the women involved are actually lying about their assault. I call him out but am regularly berated by his very wealthy male friends who advocate his beliefs. I just hope that one day someone will see my (very reasonable) arguments against his claims and challenge his bizarre ideas about consent. I’ll keep trying until he blocks me.

@arran I mentioned neuroscience earlier;
It was an off the cuff comment but it comes from a situation similar to this. I know a neuroscientist in the community who has a very good understanding of the 'whys' of s&m from this perspective. However, it's something he studies as a hobby around the peripherals of his actual work & research for many of the reasons you have already stated. The actualities of it are fascinating though and interestingly the emphasis he places on aftercare comes from the 'comedown' after all the neurochemicals and things wear off.