Consent is not the be-all and end-all

[MagicMix]

Following on from the thread about the impact of porn and other threads about the implausibility of consent to brutal practices.

The focus on sexual consent in feminism in recent years has been positive to a certain extent but I think we have lost nuance when we consider consent to be the key to sexual ethics.

Consent is not a green light for whatever you want, it is the bare minimum. Sex without consent is obviously very wrong (rape or sexual assault). And most feminists have at least some understanding that coerced consent is a problem and does not equate to true consent, although some seem unable to understand that paying someone is clear-cut coercion.

But we have to go further. Consent does not make everything all right. There are some things that can never be all right and the anti-kink-shaming 'sex-positive' thinking that refuses to condemn anything as long as someone is getting sexually aroused by it has led us down some very dark paths.

If you can stomach it, here is an article about a woman who claims to be sexually aroused by being waterboarded.
www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/waterboarding-kink-sex-bdsm-torture-779066/
Now I don't believe her and my personal opinion is that the M is BDSM is a form of self-harm, but really that is not the main point. The point is, somebody did that to her because she asked for it. People are quite literally torturing other people in the pursuit of sexual pleasure and we are expected to be non-judgmental.

The point is that the S in BDSM is sick and wrong. It was said on the other thread that we need to bring back kink shaming. Yes a thousand times. They can call me a prude, frigid, accuse me of being in a moral panic, I don't care. If someone gets sexual pleasure from hurting people, torturing people, acting out scenarios that put them in the role of rapist or slave-owner, I think that person has an unhealthy, dangerous sexuality and should seek help. It should not be accepted uncritically as harmless just because there was consent.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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 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)

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 just cannot get my head around that someone finds it sexually exciting to hurt and humiliate another person. That they can't get off until they actually cause severe pain to their partner.

I also blame 50 shades and the idiotic idolisation of seriously fucked up abusive relationships and the insinuation that every woman secretly wants to be with a callous arsehole like Christian Grey. The beginning of a very slippery slope.

Given the Brown case, how is much of what you see in porn legal, anyway? Is Brown no longer an authority? The point of the case being that consent, in the context of some acts, does not make them legally permissible.

Some people think that critiquing a thing means they will be prohibited from doing it. Surely the problem is violence, coersion and lack of consent rather than the preferences of someone having really enthusiastic anal? Are any of us really worried we'll be policed in our bedrooms and if so is that more worrying as a theoretical outcome than the current real problem of violence against women being normalised in every aspect of our culture? Saying 'but hey, what about me, I'm a woman and I like anal' is a bit derailing. (And is it BDSM anyway if you're saying 'woo, keep it coming, I really love it'?)
I've had the ultraconsensual nature of BDSM explained to me over and over and the real thing still doesn't make sense to me. For a brief moment in my youth I dabbled in it because I liked the theatricality/costuming but when you leave the outskirts and talk to people who are really serious about it as a lifestyle, I couldn't distinguish it from common/garden variety abuse, including all the insistence that doms are actually really lovely people. I also knew a lot of participants to be very emotionally damaged/unhealthy outside the bedroom. At the time I thought of myself as superprogressive and I'd hate to step on anyone's great sex but fuck it, that's my truth.

Idk if there's any point in blaming 50 Shades. She wrote Twilight fanfiction first. We could blame Twilight instead, or the Marquis de Sade or the Bible etc. But I think the zeitgeisty nature of 50 Shades is more interesting. What did so many grown women feel they had to learn from that relationship?

including all the insistence that doms are actually really lovely people.

Yeah, I'm afraid that if you derive pleasure from torturing people, even if those people say they love it, you're as far from lovely that it's possible to get. That's what I don't get. If you hurt and beat and choke people, you're a total wankstain of a human being. At least they should own it and not make out that they're some mild-mannered saint who just happens to have a little kink.

But I think the zeitgeisty nature of 50 Shades is more interesting. What did so many grown women feel they had to learn from that relationship?
Yeah maybe that's more what I meant. The way it was written about in the media, it made out that most women secretly want to be in an abusive relationship and that those badly written books unleashed their hidden sexual selves. Like shit it did. Fucked up older guy abuses naive virgin barely out of her teens and probably screws her up for life. Oh how lovely.

From the OP's link:
But in consensual and supervised conditions, Graves views the act not just as a turn-on, but as an expression of trust and intimacy. “For me, that’s ultimately the real appeal: a scenario in which I or another person is made vulnerable and trusts another person to take care of them, and they do,” she says. “So that circle is complete, where one person trusts another and the other person is trustable. So it’s a very bonding experience.”
Isn't there a much higher percentage of male dom/female sub than the reverse?
How much of this is women trying to force some emotion into sex? I mean, this isn't what I would call intimacy, but if intimacy is all "a bit cringe", your relationship is FWB at best, and your partner grew up with porn where first base is a blowjob and the porn actors never kiss - then coming up with this convoluted torture just to feel trust and a bond during sex kind of makes sense?
I wonder if male subs get into the same headspace as autogynephiles, whereby it's about fetishising oneself as a sexual object, or if they think similarly to the above?
It's very sad.
I've had plenty of excellent sex over the years but there are two or three kisses I can remember as if they were yesterday. Powerful. Thrilling. Intimate. I guess this makes me a prude? Or am I oversimplifying female sexual response?
No doubt someone will be along in a minute to correct me

But the BDSM scene works both ways, there's just as many men who like being tortured by women and weirdly that's why I feel more safe involved in it. Consent is such a big deal, everything is negotiated respectfully, and I'm treated with far more respect in fetish clubs than regular clubs.

One of the reasons this is a both/and situation (people are both messed up, and okay to practice it) is that sexual templates are laid young and often virtually impossible to change. People can have these templates set due to things that made them messed up, but they can work with their messed up backgrounds and become healthy individuals who practice messed up sex safely.

Without messed up sex, I wouldn't be satisfied. I could live my whole life having mediocre experiences and so could plenty of respectful potential partners. Or, find ways to make mutually enjoyable fantasies come true.

Not referring to current relationship, but we don't do kink anyway. I led him into it, he wasn't interested before me. Maybe that was the issue...

A pp mentioned the court case wrt causing actual bodily harm during sex - it was The Spanner Case, named after the Operation Spanner police investigation iirc.

I also blame 50 shades and the idiotic idolisation of seriously fucked up abusive relationships and the insinuation that every woman secretly wants to be with a callous arsehole like Christian Grey.
FWIW BDSM people I know were keen to point out the book throws all their "safe, sane and consensual" framework out the window, and is abusive.
Most BDSM people I know take a lot of time negotiating boundaries, in fact they spend more time in negotiations than most diplomats. Not my thing, but those who take it seriously (to my mind) aren't really a threat - if you care enough to go to a flogging workshop and you deliver considerate aftercare etc you're much less dangerous than some bloke who saw a woman getting beaten in a porno and wants to try it on his eager-to-please younger gf.
The difference between being a trained trapeze artist and emulating something you saw on Jackass - except it's someone else who gets hurt.

Totally agree OP and excellent post EJennings.
I think we are surely nearing the peak at which the pendulum will start to swing back (I hope).

We have had endless "choice" and the exhortation to be non judgemental. Each to their own etc etc.
But surely governments have introduced many laws to protect citizens, laws which limit free choice.
Drink driving poses a risk to others. Driving without a seatbelt on mostly poses a risk to oneself.
Failing to put a seatbelt or suitable restraint on a child puts that child who cannot exert their own free will and informed decision making at risk, so adults are obliged to ensure that child is suitably protected.
Laws with respect to all these things are there to protect individuals from their own ill advised decision making and to protect others from them as well.
I absolutely believe it should not be legal to do harm to others. And if you get off on doing this you are a public danger. The fact that sex was involved should not make any difference to that basic principle at all. In fact the laws should be tighter and skewed towards protecting women because, (much as we may rail against a paternalistic "protect the little woman" type of attitude) women generally are weaker than men and the evidence suggests are vulnerable when engaging sexually with men both physically and emotionally when they are vulnerable to coercion be it prude shaming or a more blatant type of emotion blackmail "if you really loved me...".
Just because some women claim to love these activities doesn't mean they should be acceptable. In order to protect women such as the sixteen year old who wouldn't even know what they are agreeing to and/or women who don't want to be humiliated/beaten/anally penetrated etc they need the protection of the law. Because otherwise if they wish to pursue a complaint it is very difficult. Especially for the ones who are dead. A basic standard is surely Respect and Do no harm.
The weight of the law should be for protection. Let the niche groups who don't want that protection find a way to do what they want to do and stay the right side of the law, they proceed at their own risk.

Well I guess you do recognise that there may be a troubling background behind getting off on certain behaviour. But I still stand by the fact that if you can only attain sexual pleasure from hurting someone- sometimes seriously injuring them, you are a person who likes injuring people. Whether you find it arousing or not doesn’t change the fact that you like injuring people.

I also knew a lot of participants to be very emotionally damaged/unhealthy outside the bedroom. At the time I thought of myself as superprogressive and I'd hate to step on anyone's great sex but fuck it, that's my truth.
I might be contradicting myself here but that's my experience also. And polyamorous relationships always have one person doing it for emotionally coercive reasons.
But people are good at lying to themselves and others.

Isn't there a much higher percentage of male dom/female sub than the reverse?

No, not in my experience. Quite the reverse.

There are also plenty of people who switch - go from dom to sub and back again depending on circumstances.

Among females, over three-quarters were subs, switches were a distant second in popularity, while doms were very much in the minority.
www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/unique-everybody-else/201307/bdsm-personality-and-mental-health
Every social circle is different obviously.

Really interesting thread.

Thefirstmrsdewinter was that Operation Spanner? en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Spanner

This discussion has made me think of Natalie Connolly and the awful death she suffered, through acts to which she apparently consented. That can’t possibly be right.