To what extent should you be able to consent to harm in sex?

[PorcelinaV]

There is a recent thread here on the "rough sex defence", and obviously you don't want people getting away with murder.

But to what extent, if any, should you be able to consent to harm in sex?

The UK standard appears to be that you can't consent to "actual bodily harm" which looks like theoretically a lot of BDSM could be illegal in the UK.

You probably wouldn't get charged in practice unless injury was getting more serious, but the actual standard (as far as I can tell) could theoretically mean that pretty mild BDSM without any risk to life would be illegal.

And the case law justification is along the lines that BDSM is sexually depraved and a perversion.

Compare with combat sports where you may potentially beat someone to death, and it's allowed because of consent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Brown

"Society is entitled and bound to protect itself against a cult of violence. Pleasure derived from the infliction of pain is an evil thing. Cruelty is uncivilised."

The case law involved someone nailing their scrotum to a board, which is getting more serious and you might end up needing medical treatment for.

but you can ask a surgeon to cut you open and shove silicone implants under your skin or muscle, or to break your nose

not to mention the nearly not regulated industries like beauty injections or body modifications

what you are trying to do is tell people what is "harm"

so is it really the actual "harm" that concerns you or are you just kink shaming?

I was about to mention body modification. In that situation you are paying someone to inflict lasting “harm” to your body for non-medical reasons. Under this hypothetical law, why would people be allowed to consent to this but not to anything under the BDSM umbrella? Or are we planning to criminalise tattooing, piercing etc as well?

Kink shaming? No, if you want to dress up like a labradoodle and then dry hump your partner in to the middle of next week in the privacy of your own home - then knock yourself out, it's no skin off anyone's nose. But specifically harming someone to achieve pleasure is a societal issue because it breaks a societal code about harm/ violence.

I do think that some body modification does fly pretty close to the wind. I think when practices do operate in proximity to these codes we have more and more regulation. So, there is an expectation that the practitioner ascertains that the harm isn't the product, but the modification itself and that the process used minimises the level of harm.

But obviously you can't have regulations to minimize harm and hold people accountable for their process within a private, sexual relationship.

I think the point is that I'm trying to argue for an exception to be made in the law - that does harm women and girls because it opens up a loophole to be exploited by violent men who wish to cause non-consensual harm: they are more likely to do it if they know that there is a defence of 'she wanted me to'

Whereas, while it is illegal to harm others in the process/pursuit of sexual gratification that loophole doesn't exist and therefore that may give some men pause and may protect some women and girls from harm they would otherwise have suffered.

No-one is bathing into anyone else's bedrooms and stopping them doing whatever they want in private. If both parties want to - no one is practically going to stop them in the moment. If it goes wrong and one party is hurt the other will be held accountable. Imo that is an acceptable risk - the party who would be held accountable is going into that act eyes open and aware of the potential risk they are taking in engaging in an activity that may harm their partner.

The woman or girl who may be harmed by a violent man does not have that choice or prior knowledge of the risk. She needs more protection.

And I realise that the comeback to this is 'well violent men will be violent regardless' 'this won't stop them' - I disagree, I believe it may stop some, or at least make them more cautious, and even one woman saved from a violent encounter makes it worth it.

Clearly the current situation doesn't stop BDSM happening so why do its proponents feel that their own known risk is more important than the risk posed to completely innocent unsuspecting women and girls?

You want to do bdsm? You know the risks, so just get on with it and stop whining.

That sounds not far off the R v Brown position - the dissents on that one in regard to consent and the law are very interesting.

so basically you're bothered by the intent...in which case, theoretically, if the person inflicting harm did this for their masochistic partner and not for own pleasure, then it would be ok?

there is a thread of a woman whose partner asked her to choke him - she's not into it, but did it for him, so should she be prosecuted?

If he complains, and harm was caused by her actions, then yes. Adults should understand that there are risk involved in making certain decisions and that they are responsible for their own actions.

I had an ex who repeatedly asked me to strangle him. I didn't ever do it.

Mate, no offence, but it seems like you keep asking people this question in different guises. Are you not understanding what they’re saying or are you trying to pester them into agreeing with you? Trying to find an acceptable exception to a rule does not automatically negate the validity of the rule.

I mean, if she hurt him whilst choking him then I'm saying that his enthusiastic consent and pestering shouldn't be a mitigating legal factor. There isn't, and shouldn't be, legal loopholes for kinks.

I don't know why you keep making this about my feelings. I'm talking about principles.

And at this point, my thoughts on the matter are so plain and fleshed out in response to the myriad of whataboutery, I'm drawing my participation in the thread to a close.

Ultimately the argument is about circumstances in which consent should be outlawed as a defence (there are already some). I think you’d have to define it more precisely (e.g. in terms of the harm caused), or else the courts would, but there is never going to be universal agreement on this issue.

That's rather simple minded.

People get called "TERF", or even use the term themselves, when the majority of them aren't actually radical feminists.

How the term originated is connected to radical feminism, but it's more complex than that in practice.

Same as, with BDSM, how the term originated is connected to sadism, but it's very possibly more complex than that in practice.

If you wanted to understand people's motivations here you can't just look up the dictionary definition of one word like that.

Use of examples isn't automatically "whataboutery".

Yes, you're just insisting that your own opinion is correct.

In reality, the ethics of BDSM is a disputed question in the world today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_BDSM

im genuinely curious about the logic here - because there is a lot of stupid / dangerous / "but why though?!" things people do and nobody dreams of policing that...but as soon as sex is involved we should protect women

im kind of sick of this idea that women has to be told what is good for us

consent as defence should never work because clearly victim did not consent to being choked to death, but we would be living in some sort of dystopian world if your GP could report your partner because they saw a bruise in your ass

I think they were using a mix of different arguments; but the "societal code" claim is I think obviously wrong when you get into the details and look at the specific case of BDSM.

The banning of BDSM is not required by any "societal code" that we definitely need in an uncontroversial sense, and different countries have different laws.

If it involved genuine sadism, then I could agree that it went against the core values of civilisation. But it's not clear to me that the majority of BDSM actually involves genuine sadism.

But it's not clear to me that the majority of BDSM actually involves genuine sadism.
And yet somehow you can't see that blurring of definitions and boundaries is a problem with BDSM itself. BDSM promotes hierarchical thinking, in the same way that patriarchy does. It escalates and it leaks out of its own sphere, in the same way that abusive behaviour does. Its not something feminists support, and women have done a pretty good job explaining the issues.

apologies as I am really losing the thread here. We were talking about whether it should be legally acceptable for people to consent to certain things, and it feels as though the logic is that people should not be able to consent to things which promote hierarchical thinking. I’m pretty sure that’s not what is actually being said though.

I know lots of people dislike BDSM on principle and that is fair enough, but I’m not sure that hierarchical structure or the existence of power dynamics in general is a sufficient reason in and of itself to delegitimise consent for legal purposes.

@TwoDozenWomen feminists are not a hive-mind and as a feminist I support autonomy of women even in things I personally may not understand or participate in

Not everything becomes feminist just because a woman is doing it.

so dont make blanket statements that whatever you think is what all feminists believe in