The Paradoxes of Sexual Ethics and Erotic Desire: Consensual vs Non-Consensual BDSM
CW // discussion of sexual violence; discussion of queer-/transphobia
In both popular and academic circles, discourse regarding the practice of Bondage, Discipline and Sadomasochism (BDSM) is tumultuous. It regularly results in a divisive sharing of opinions. However, central to these pivotal conversations is the manner in which each addresses matters of consent, agency and their definition of “eroticism.” Often, these discussions seek out a necessary demarcation between what constitutes pleasure, violence and danger.
BDSM is frequently captured as a manifestation of misogyny, and its practice is presented as wholly derivative of patriarchal culture. On social media platforms such as TikTok, or more specifically ‘Kink Tok,’ you might find assertations made by women in comment sections, such as: “call me vanilla, but I don’t find violence sexy,” or “why does nobody like vanilla sex anymore?” These comments are made with both a level of seriousness and jest, but are reflexive of larger conversations that have been had within feminist circles and by queer theorists.
Misogynistic comments are frequently levied towards women who practise BDSM, sentiments like: ‘wow, fatherless behaviour,’ or ‘damn, who hurt you’ are all too common. The insinuation is that the perceived absence of a man has somehow led to a woman’s morally failing and sexual perversity. Ultimately, these are attitudes desirous of maintaining the conservative or heteronormative conscriptions of sexuality, femininity or eroticism which prevail within the contemporary era.
That said, it has actually been radical feminists who have situated themselves most opposed to BDSM, especially the idea that any formation of violence could ever be ethically ‘consented’ too. This is not surprising though, since BDSM is often presented as a strictly heterosexual practice, that maintains the unequal power dynamics that already exist between men and women. However, this discourse which appears juxtaposed to the idea of ‘safe’ or ‘ethical’ practices of BDSM, warns of a deep level of sexism and misogyny itself.
Since Anti-BDSM discourse only comments upon heterosexual engagements, BDSM’s ability to be emotionally, physically or sexually salubrious is quickly dismissed on the grounds that its practice is almost always gendered. ‘Men’ are posited as primarily domineering and women being innately submissive. Consequently, it frames women’s engagements with BDSM as a form of ‘coercion’ and as inherently devoid of agency. This becomes somewhat ironic, since feminists opposed to BDSM fail to recognise that their framing of women as ‘passive’ agents removes the very ‘agency’ they claim to be trying to ensure.
It is a formation of feminist praxis which becomes wholly reminiscent of strands of white feminism, wherein white women speak from positions of white or class privilege, ignore the existence of intersectionality or transnational inequalities, and who frequently remain disavowing discourse or speaking on behalf of racial, sexual and gender minorities.
Anti-BDSM discourse often does not let those who enjoy ‘kink’ express themselves freely or navigate their sexuality free of judgement. Instead meaningful concerns about violence against women, frequently transcend into being condescending towards the women who practice it.
Anti-BDSM discourse seems to maintain the broader patriarchal desire to view women navigating their sexuality as not really being in ‘control’ of this navigation. A cultural mistrust of women’s ability to make choices for themselves, should be considered a type of infantilization and one which is no less dissimilar to the broader societal ways women are controlled or restricted based on attitudes that consider them incapable of making decisions for themselves.
Anti-BDSM discourse, adds to a ever-growing list of ‘decisions’ made by women which are forced to be perceived as highly contentious; sex work, abortion, choosing not to have children, opting for career development over sustaining romantic partnerships, or body modifications. Radical feminists will claim they are ‘for’ women’s rights, but the possibility that women might find enacting or succumbing to violence ‘erotic’ or on their own terms, will inevitably be inconceivable for those who are subscribing to patriarchal ideals or conservative conscriptions of what ‘femininity’ or ‘womanhood’ should entail.
Moreover, claims that women could never ‘genuinely’ enjoy consenting to violence, perpetuate the sexist and misinformed belief that it is ‘only’ men that are ‘truly’ violent. Anti-BDSM discourses frame normative male sexuality as inherently aggressive and women’s sexuality as passive.
Consequently, the existence of dominatrix women within and outside of BDSM communities are wholly ignored, since there is a failure to take these women seriously. In a different vein, a social acknowledgement of the number of men who participate in BDSM - in roles of subordination or submission - results in their stigmatisation. These men become framed as ‘effeminate’ men, yet only due to subversions of conservative framings of masculinity.
However, BDSM should be considered a powerful disruptor of dominant social conceptions. It disturbs perceptions about how gender and sexuality should ‘operate’ in accordance with ideas about ‘who’ holds power, and it has commented upon able-bodied privilege. In addition, a number of academics have recently attended to how some forms of play, intrinsic to the practice of BDSM can actually be subversions of experienced or experiencing oppression.
For instance, an associate professor at Macalester College, Corrie Hammers, has explored how ‘rape-play’ or so-called forms of consensual non-consensual acts of violence have been used to actually ‘rework’ the trauma in which survivors of abuse have endured. For those unaccustomed to CNC, it is a form of ‘play,’ wherein participants find it erotic or healing to issue ‘consent’ to a sexual act, which would ordinarily be considered as violence or forms of assault.
It could involve a person pre-issuing consent to another person to wake them up from their sleep, through sexual acts being implemented upon them. Or more frequently, consensual non-consensual acts often involve playmates and BDSM participants negotiating ‘scenes’ wherein they consent to giving away ‘power’ or bodily autonomy away to their playmate.
Of course, this practice has resulted in moral panic regarding the legitimacy and ethics of so-called ‘pre-negotiated’ or ‘pre-issued’ forms of consent. Often this involves asking what happens if consent is pre-issued but during the act it becomes revoked. However, revocations of consent are no less dissimilar to revocations of consent made prior too, or during forms of ‘vanilla’ sex or forms of intimacy. Intrinsic to any practice of BDSM, are discussions of safe words, boundaries or limits prior to playing. This does not just include ‘verbal safe words’, but physical signals too. Tapping or hand signs are central to ensuring safe practices.
Similarly, safe and ethical practices of BDSM recognise that issuing ‘safe’ words or physical signals, are not to be glorified, nor conceived as the ‘end goal’ of play. Indeed, safe practices of BDSM involve taking time with practising new kinks and ensuring that each playmate has learnt skills properly. It also involves talking through risks, or sharing safety knowledge. It requires respecting playmates who choose not to indulge themselves in a practice if they feel it to be risky.
Indeed, as Hammer’s has noted, BDSM often forefront consent through pre-care and after-care, which involves verbal and physical check-ins with partners, that ensure that each person is feeling safe, and cared for. Ironically, this is something which is frequently commented upon by culture as being absent from hook-ups or ‘vanilla’ forms of intimacy and sex. BDSM constructs a space, wherein departures from social or moral conformance are welcomed to be played around with safely.
Nonetheless, the most perplexing aspect to anti-BDSM discourse has been the way it has neglected the presence of queer-BDSM practioners and communities. Although, this is perhaps not a mistake. Whilst anti-BDSM sentiment claims to care for the overall trajectory of feminist movements, they seemingly slip into trans-exclusionary radical feminism, since their discussions recentre the gender binary in order to claim it as ‘misogynistic’.
In this process, queer people become wholly disregarded. Once again, queer people are forced into underrepresentation. Silencing the experiences and sexual politics of queer people, only perpetuates the level of de-humanisation in which queer people often experience through treating them as non-existent.
Pop-culture and films have certainly aided radical feminist perceptions. Films or franchises such as ‘Fifty Shades of Grey,’ present BDSM as a practice that exists between cishet men and women, and wherein men hold all the power, whilst women are conceived as the objects to which male violence is implemented upon. This sheds light on why BDSM frequently incurs moral panics, some of which go insofar to posit BDSM as a ‘human rights abuse’.
However, I would maintain that the desires of pop-culture or radical feminists to frame acts violence, as a form of BDSM – does not just aid in a serious misrepresentation of BDSM and its practitioners. It also does an incredible disservice for feminism. Whilst Anti-BDSM discourse believes to be in the process of dismantling gender violence or tenets of rape culture, I would maintain that it somewhat paradoxically, perpetuates it.
For instance, moral panics often frame BDSM as permitting or resulting in non-consensual acts of physical or sexual violence being levied against women. Oftentimes, news headlines will result to cultural commentaries upon how women have experienced acts of physical or sexual violence during sex. However, instead of commenting on how these acts are only acts of violence in which manifest as misogyny, white racial supremacy, classism or ableism - violence is attributed as owing to the practice of BDSM.
This logic feels strongly redolent of the rise of political lesbianism in the 1970’s and 1980’s, which continues having harmful effects inside of and external to queer communities. The pernicious political praxis of the Women Against Prostitution Movement is certainly comparable here too. Both, regardless of their semantics, precariously framed heterosexual sex under patriarchy as a formation of ‘violence’ and these attitudes remain permitting harmful logics within the contemporary era that criminalise, stigmatise and harms sex workers or queer communities.
Though, sometimes even male perpetrators of violence themselves, appear to acclaim to the women they have assaulted - or juridical systems they find themselves situated in - that they were ‘practising' or ‘into’ BDSM. This is an attempt to exonerate themselves from the acts of violence they have committed.
In this way, the practice of BDSM or ‘Kink’ is being mobilised into being an ‘excuse’ or ‘defence’ for which the horrors of male sexual violence are shifted away from the perpetrators and onto the practice of BDSM. This maintains the idea that men don’t wilfully commit acts of violence, and instead shifts the blame elsewhere.
Survivors are soon to be told that they should have ‘practised BDSM more safely,’ or ‘chosen a better playmate’. So, when radical feminists such as Laila Mickelwait assert that “consent is not a defence, when assault is the offence,” they are somewhat right. But, it is unfortunate that they shift the blame of male violence on to those who practice or participate in BDSM.
It is this logic which allows male violence to be displaced and to be seen not as the inherent workings of contemporary or normative masculinity, but as the ‘perversions’ of which BDSM enables. Gender violence and rape culture will prevail, so long as there is ‘someone’ or ‘something’ to explain away the ills of those who are socially constructed to remain the beneficiaries of patriarchy.
Written by Natalie Sherriff
Natalie Sherriff has a MSc in Gender (Sexuality) from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her undergraduate degree was in International Relations from the University of Exeter. Along side her unhealthy obsession with political podcasts and house-plants, her interests include: current affairs, digital media culture, feminist theory, sexuality and the occult. You can follow her antics on Instagram @nat_a_alie .
