Elements Of BDSM: Consent
A certain mystique surrounds the world of bondage and S&M play that evokes images of extreme sexual activities often involving elaborate costumes, pain and harsh play. Bondage and S&M play can involve certain elements of pain which is pleasurable to the receiver, but bondage or S&M play are not limited or even reliant upon the media projected images of extreme sexual domination and so forth. Despite the fact that exact techniques and styles of S&M play vary tremendously, universally agreed-upon elements do exist. This four part article examines these elements and delves into our common assumptions regarding bondage or S&M play.
Consent
If there is one idea or concept you remember from this article make it be CONSENT in all SM play. Every book, article, or web site which treats the subject of bondage or BDSM play highlights that consent between partners is the most important element of bondage or BDSM play. Jay Wiseman in his new Erotic Bondage Handbook writes: "This [consent] is the big one. All bondage or SM play is, by definition, consensual. While some advanced bondage and SM practitioners play at the outer edges of consent and while great debate can and does take place regarding the nuances and subtle aspects of what constitutes adequate consent, at its heart SM is consensual activity. The basic nature of this consent is relatively straightforward and easily understood by the average person. It is very comparable to the type of consent that one person needs to give in order for another person to legally have sex with them. Bondage and SM play should only be done by people who are adequately informed of the nature of what they are doing and who are mentally competent t decide for themselves whether or not this is something that they want to do. That being the case, bondage or SM should not be engaged in by people who are too emotionally immature, senile, intoxicated, mentally retarded, or uninformed to understand the basic nature of the activity. (In fact, engaging in bondage or SM with such a person could get you charged with rape.) Also, it is not ethical to "manufacture consent" by manipulating or exerting any undue influence upon another person to get them to engage in bondage or SM" (14).
It bears repeating the official BDSM credo--"safe, sane and consensual"—to reiterate the importance of bondage or BDSM play being a consensual, safe and sane activity. Consensual meaning that both partners engaged in bondage or BDSM play have previously agreed to a) engage in bondage or S&M activities together; b) that the activities in the bondage or S&M play session have been previously defined and discussed in detail; and that c) boundaries of comfort have been established and a previously agreed signal has been created to provide an immediate exit from the scenario. Accidents in bondage and S&M play occur predominantly when one or both of the partners are intoxicated, when rules of conduct have not been established, and when the bondage or sadomasochistic play stops being consensual.
The women at Good Vibrations.com say it best: "S/M has nothing to do with coercion, either sexual or non sexual. The common denominator in all S/M play is not a violent exchange of pain, but a consensual exchange of power. The distinction that S/M is about [consensual] eroticized power play, not about physical or emotional abuse, is crucial to understanding and demystifying the subject" (257). The informed, enthusiastic consent of a person of sound mind points to all signals go where bondage and S&M play are concerned. Next in this series… using a safeword.