Her Owner

photo credit: ilovememphis/
As a community of smart individuals we would be foolish to believe that there is no abuse in the BDSM lifestyle. Due to the nature of our interactions and the many individuals I have met who participate in this lifestyle I believe that we are even more prone to abuse than most other relationship and lifestyle choices out there. While physical abuse is probably the most visible form, I would stipulate that emotional abuse is far more common within our lifestyle. Any form of abuse is unacceptable and I wanted to speak out on the topic as it is dear to my heart.

I am not a lawyer and I gaining my insight from carefully studying some of the more relevant documents on this topic which you can find all over the place online. My interpretations might be wrong, they are definitely my own, so please take that into consideration when reading this.

What is most important to our lifestyle is the concept of consent and the context that consent is given in. The topic of consent it a very complicated one and lawyers all over the world have devoted full books to the topic. I doubt that I can clear up things, what I am talking about is an attempt to sort some of my own ideas while trying to give you an idea of what you might wish to investigating further and focus on understanding for yourself.  The concept of consent is almost equally applied to all law across the world. The actual application and the context that consent is being perceived in is very specific to the jurisdiction you are in. The  concept itself is simple.

I would like to start by repeating a definition found at Legal-Dictionary to better define what we are talking about:

Voluntary Acquiescence to the proposal of another; the act or result of reaching an accord; a concurrence of minds; actual willingness that an act or an infringement of an interest shall occur.
Consent is an act of reason and deliberation. A person who possesses and exercises sufficient mental capacity to make an intelligent decision demonstrates consent by performing an act recommended by another. Consent assumes a physical power to act and a reflective, determined, and unencumbered exertion of these powers. It is an act unaffected by Fraud, duress, or sometimes even mistake when these factors are not the reason for the consent. Consent is implied in every agreement.

So we are told that consent is a form of Acquiescence and that is an active act of reason and deliberation. It gets confusing when we try to understand how consent cannot be influenced by Fraud, duress or mistakes. The definition above clearly only concerns itself with the actual definition of what consent is and not how we arrive at such a consent. This is important to anyone in the BDSM community as it quite blatantly makes obvious that having consent or thinking that you do, does not necessarily mean the law understands it the same way. How did you arrive at that consent? Reading on we can see:

In the context of rape, submission due to apprehension or terror is not real consent. There must be a choice between resistance and acquiescence. If a woman resists to the point where additional resistance would be futile or until her resistance is forcibly overcome, submission thereafter is not consent.

This statement, as simple and logical as it might seem triggered a slew of questions within me. What does duress mean? What is considered submission due to apprehension and when does it become resistance instead of acquiescence? Just like the definition of consent is not clear cut the definition of duress is not either. These two definitions seem to encompass best what I would like to express in the context of our lifestyle:

Unlawful pressure exerted upon a person to coerce that person to perform an act that he or she ordinarily would not perform.

[...] Duress also exists where a person is coerced by the wrongful conduct or threat of another to enter into a contract under circumstances that deprive the individual of his or her volition.

as well as

DURESS. An actual or a threatened violence or restraint of a man’s person, contrary to law, to compel him to enter into a contract, or to discharge one. 1 Fairf. 325.

To me this would indicate that whenever I am engaging in a play situation I best have made sure that anything the person would like to consent to has been agreed upon beforehand. Which brings us to another interesting fact. The law recognises different forms of consent.

Consent is either express or implied. Express, when it is given viva voce, or in writing; implied, when it is manifested by signs, actions, or facts, or by inaction or silence, which raise a presumption that the consent has been given.

After reading the above I started thinking and the scenario I am pondering is a quite common one. Let us assume a girl agreed for me to tie her up in a bondage position we agreed on. This consent has been expressly given, viva voce. By putting her into a restraint position I am putting her under duress. So as the play progresses and I pull out my flogger to work over her ass she does not say anything. That to me means that consent is implied as she is not acting in a way that would indicate otherwise. No safe word, no extreme expressions of discomfort and so on. However if that girl took me before a court I would not be so sure that I was safe, this might be considered submission due to apprehension. After all her implied consent was given under duress and that might null and void the implied consent. I might have been allowed to tie her up, yet taking the flogger to her ass could easily get me prosecuted for assault and/or battery. Other than the situations above when it comes to criminal law and assault, as well as battery the law is very clear and states:

ASSAULT, crim. law. An assault is any unlawful attempt or offer with force or violence to do a corporal hurt to another, whether from malice or wantonness; for example, by striking at him or even holding up the fist at him in a threatening or insulting manner, or with other circumstances as denote at the time. an intention, coupled with a present ability, of actual violence against his person, as by pointing a weapon at him when he is within reach of it. 6 Rogers Rec: 9. When the injury is actually inflicted, it amounts to a battery. (q.v.)

Getting down to the abuse issue it becomes blurred, since abuse is defined as:

ABUSE. Every thing which is contrary to good order established by usage. Merl. Rep. h.t. Among the civilians, abuse has another signification; which is the destruction of the substance of a thing in using it. For example, the borrower of wine or grain, abuses the article lent by using it, because he cannot enjoy it without consuming it. Leg ; El. Dr. Rom. Sec. 414. 416.

Looking at it through the eyes of the law there is probably an endless slew of abuse and non-consent anywhere in the world, however it seems that our community is much more prone to it due to the physical interactions and the type of interactions individuals choose to interact with. While this might not be so prevalent in long term relationships where behaviour can be analysed over months and years and thus some form of implied consent can be constructed, I would suggest we pay very close attention to the sort of boundaries we set each other when we are in a play environment with a partner we might not know very well.

In this particular case the law clearly is biased towards those wishing to highlight an issue of abuse or non-consent and I believe it is good that way. This does not only apply to physical abuse, yet emotional abuse as well. This is called psychological abuse and also defined:

Psychological abuse or emotional abuse is a form of abuse characterised by a person subjecting or exposing another to behaviour that is psychologically harmful.
Psychological abuse is the willful infliction of mental or emotional anguish by threat, humiliation, or other verbal or nonverbal conduct. It is often associated with situations of power imbalance, such perhaps as the situations of abusive relationships and child abuse; however, it can also take place on larger scales, such as Group psychological abuse, racial oppression and bigotry.

While this is a broad definition and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders sees almost all of us as sexually deviant (see DSM-IV-TR) there is simply no reason for anyone in the lifestyle not to report either form of abuse to the authorities when it is being witnessed. I think we all have been guilty of misinterpreting what is acceptable in the vanilla world versus what is acceptable in the BDSM world. We might have our own understanding of where we want to set the bar in terms of physical abuse and the use of behaviour and voice in terms of physiological abuse, yet abuse, is still abuse. It is our duty to report these incidents to the police regardless of whether everyone else feels that it was an issue of abuse or not. If you feel that this is an issue that needs to be brought up with the authorities then it is your duty as a citizen to do so. In the end this kind of behaviour will not only strengthen the credibility of the BDSM community with the rest of the world, it will also establish an understanding in the Police and Law communities that we do not tolerate unacceptable and harmful behaviour. First and foremost we need to establish a behaviour and conduct of what is acceptable within our community before me can expect anyone else to accept that standard.

The question of what is normal, what defines the norm is a very old one and it is rather dependant on the circumstances. I do believe that there needs to be some common ground regardless. Often we excuse behaviour which makes us uncomfortable as something they are entitled to because that is simply “their dynamic“, this kind of thinking simply perpetuates the problem.  It will take time to calibrate our responses to be sensible and geared towards an application in BDSM, however that calibration will never happen unless we start doing do those reports.

Whether they are unspoken or spoken, rules in the community are well established and not knowing does not protect you from consequences. A friend of ours just chronicled that on her blog. While the whole incident might be dismissed by some in the community as a “slap on her ass”, this is a particular form of abuse. If I was her or the person controlling her, I would have called the police right there and then and found out who the culprit was. not only to jerk the person back into reality but to establish that there are consequences when you do not follow the well established expectations and rules of the community. There is abuse and non-consent in BDSM and we are fools to believe that it is just in a very select few cases. I urge everyone to open their eyes and start doing something about it!