While waiting for the firestorm over my three masculinity posts to die down (I’ll post a followup soon, promise), I want to parse out some recent thoughts on — you guessed it — consent!
I’ve been dating a guy here in Africa whom I will henceforth refer to as Chastity Boy.* I recently wrote a piece on my southern Africa experience that included descriptions of my relationship with him. I texted him, asking permission to write about him — which he granted — and then the next time I saw him in person, I had him go over the writing and specifically give consent for the piece itself. I warned him that the writing would almost certainly end up in a public place, though it would be under my scene name Clarisse.
This step accomplished, I sent the piece to some friends for feedback. One of those people was a mutual friend. Chastity Boy heard that she’d read it and wasn’t happy; he asked me about it, saying things like, “Well, it wasn’t quite a red flag, but close …” Naturally, with him talking about red flags, I felt scared that I’d transgressed a serious boundary. My ears perked up, I sat straighter and I tried to figure out why I’d failed to sense that boundary.
We talked for a while. “I don’t understand,” I eventually said. “You knew those pieces could end up in public. That’s why I thought it was okay to send them to her.”
“Well, but that’s different … I knew it’d be in public, but I didn’t expect people I know to see it,” he said. He thought about it some more. “I guess it just took me by surprise.”
“Do you want me to edit some parts of the pieces, or not post them?”
“No,” he said. “You can keep writing whatever you like about me.”
I asked if he was sure. He assented. I asked if he was really sure. He assented again. I asked if there was anyone in particular he didn’t want knowing about my identity as Miss Clarisse Thorn. He told me, and with that understanding, we closed the topic.
The whole incident got me thinking, though. Eventually, if I publish those pieces, he won’t be able to withdraw consent. I myself won’t be able to, either: after all, once published, it’s published. Even if circumstances change drastically, even if I’m outed, etc. etc. etc. … it’s out there: end of story. Especially in today’s highly backed-up and mirrored world, it’s nearly impossible to bury something once it’s been tossed into the public arena.
The ability to withdraw consent is one of the cornerstones of BDSM communication. (In a hypothetical world that did a good job of teaching vanilla relationship communication, I’d think it would be one cornerstone of that, too.) Hence our most basic tactic — safewords, which even most mainstream folks have heard about by now. There are some tricky aspects of using safewords well: you want to ensure that the safeword is easily pronounced, for instance; you want to ensure that both parties have access to some kind of safeword-signal at all times, even when (for example) gagged. Most importantly, you want to ensure that all parties feel comfortable safewording. This is often the hardest part, since (for example) bottoms can have a ton of pride wrapped up in not safewording, or be so desperate to please the top that they’ll feel guilty for safewording. (And tops may feel as though, since they’re “in charge”, they have no “reason” or “right” to safeword.)
Ultimately, I think all those issues come down to mastering good communication tactics and learning to read one’s partner. For instance, I’ve had a number of tops stop the scene before I safeworded because they accurately sensed my distaste before I was sure we should stop (and I’ve done the same myself, while topping).
But the situation with Chastity Boy isn’t like that. His consent is bounded by factors beyond my control, which any amount of good mutual communication can’t change. Past a certain point, he can’t withdraw consent.
It reminds me of a situation I once saw outlined on a FetLife discussion board. A fetish model who’d had a relationship with her photographer was posting. She said that she’d signed a model release (that is, a document giving up all rights to his pictures of her), and that they’d taken photographs together for years. Now they’d broken up, and she wanted him to take down the pictures, but he wouldn’t do it. She was asking the group if she had any recourse.
My initial reaction to her question was to feel indignant on her behalf. Obviously, I thought, her ex was being an ass! She might have no legal recourse, but I figured that at the very least she might be able to ruin his reputation in the BDSM community, and I said so. Then, however, I read some of the other comments, and I reconsidered. It’s true that her ex was perhaps being a jerk, but he also might not have been; it’s impossible to tell without his input. As a photographer, those photos were part of his livelihood, and was it reasonable for her to demand that he lose that money just because they’d broken up? Too, there’s the fact that models who sign model releases with other photographers would never be able to “take back” the pictures: those photos aren’t theirs and never will be. It might arguably be different for a fetish model than it would be for, say, a Nordstrom model, because leaving fetish photographs public could affect her future relationships in ways that a Nordstrom photo shoot wouldn’t. But the basic commercial framework is the same.
So here’s the question that came out of this, for me. What are my responsibilities in a situation where consent, ultimately, will have to be permanent? What were the photographer’s responsibilities?
Hmm. But maybe I should back up a bit! Maybe the situation of the model and of Chastity Boy can be compared, if not to a heated BDSM encounter itself, then to a BDSM encounter that has lasting effects: for instance, one that leaves bruises or scars. In such a situation, I think the top has the responsibility to ask the bottom ahead of time where it’s okay to leave marks (and what kind of marks are acceptable). A top who deliberately marks a bottom in a place where the bottom doesn’t want to be marked has violated that bottom’s consent. But if a bottom gives permission — with full understanding of what the marks will look like and how long they could last — then there’s no way to withdraw consent once marked.
True, the bottom could have “morning after” regrets, just as the model had regrets upon breaking up with her ex. But those regrets do not a violation make. The only potential violation would arise from a top’s (or photographer’s) failure to clarify the consequences of their acts. I do think that it’s incumbent upon all partners to be open to feedback, of course! The good tops I know are open to discussing a bottom’s morning-after regrets, if the bottom has any. But it’s also incumbent upon a bottom to take ownership of their own responsibility for those regrets.
One might argue that the responsibilities of a writer are different from the responsibilities of a kinkster. Must I as a writer be as careful as I am during BDSM, in gaining consent? After all, there are plenty of writers out there who aren’t anywhere near as cautious with their muses as kinksters try to be with our partners …. Still, I think any artist who plans to portray a sexual partner explicitly should observe the same care with that person’s boundaries as they would while actually having sex with them. Other personal information (for instance, writing about how my boyfriend drinks his coffee) may require less care; but sexual boundaries are as sensitive when portrayed in a memoir as they would be in person, and deserve the same respect.
So, here are my responsibilities — as both kinkster and sex writer: not just to get consent ahead of time, but to be very sure that my partners know exactly what the long-term consequences could be.
* This moniker arises from the fact that he’s got a vow of chastity going — yeah, I know, it’s beautifully ironic that a sex activist is dating such a man! And I do, of course, have his consent to call him that.
Clarisse
Part of it is also just common sense. If you’re with a partner who has to be talked into it in any way or who is mainly going along with it to please you, then doing anything that leaves marks is a bad idea. (I’m generally not turned on by those forms of extreme D/s play, so this is rarely a problem.)
I remember a comment thread a while back (I forget where it was) that concerned putting people’s pictures up on Facebook. People you don’t know very well. Asking them publicly, in front of all of your mutual friends, where it’s very hard for them to say no, is not truly asking them for their consent. There’s doing whatever it takes to do what you want whilst not technically doing anything wrong, and then there’s acting honorably.
I’m not saying that you were doing anything wrong w/r/t your situation, Clarisse. :D Just, I guess I’m saying there’s no ironclad list of responsibilities one can draw up for the top in any situation (not just in BDSM situations) so that the bottom never feels legitimately violated. You can only enforce the letter, never the spirit, of the law. To get the latter, you simply have to know who to trust and who to avoid.
Comment by sylphhead — November 7, 2009 @ 4:17 pm
@sylphhead: I mostly agree with you, and don’t think we’re contradicting each other ….
I think that there is such a thing as ironclad lists of responsibilities (e.g., stop when your partner wants you to stop); the thing that is difficult to figure out is implementation. Usually, with sexual consent, “implementation” means “communication tactics”. The Facebook example, for instance, is a problem of communication, not responsibility: whether you’re responsible for getting consent is not the issue (you are); the question is how best you communicate about it (clearly, you don’t do it in front of other people — so maybe you call them or otherwise do it in private, and you of course make it very clear that you are open to them saying “no”).
In re: “with a partner who has to be talked into it in any way or who is mainly going along with it to please you”, your leaving marks rule is interesting. What makes you say that? Did you have some relevant experience?
Comment by Clarisse — November 8, 2009 @ 3:47 pm
Quite true. Just getting consent isn’t following one’s responsibilities in BDSM — getting informed consent is. If they don’t know what it is they’re getting into, then their consent isn’t valid.
I’d also add that there are other methods that gain consent technically, but not realistically. Getting someone drunk or high before getting their consent, for example. Or otherwise seducing their consent when they’re in an altered mental state. All these examples are in line with the law — someone is not bound by a contract if they do not understand its terms, and getting a girl drunk and having sex with her is rape.
As a quick point about ironclad lists of responsibilities, I don’t completely agree. Your example of “stop when your partner wants you to stop” is something that many people in M/s relationships don’t abide by. I know several men in the leather lifestyle who don’t use/allow safewords when playing. I also know a master that is very well-respected in the community who freely admits that he doesn’t necessarily stop when his slave safewords (unless there is some safety/medical issue). They’ve been together for 10 years, she is aware of this, and she trusts him to know her limits better than she does. I’m not saying that I agree or disagree with this, just that what is obviously required to one person is optional to another.
Comment by Sammael — November 10, 2009 @ 1:06 pm
@Sammael: But I think that just proves my point again, that the tricky part is the communication tactics …. Safewords are a great tactic that I promote whenever possible, but they aren’t the be-all and end-all of communication. Just because two people are playing without safewords doesn’t mean that the top isn’t stopping when hir partner wants hir to stop. And in your example of the well-respected master, well, then clearly his slave doesn’t want him to stop when she safewords, right? If she did, she’d (hopefully) renegotiate. Their communication has gone beyond safewords. Doesn’t mean he is any less responsible to stop when she really wants him to stop.
Comment by Clarisse — November 10, 2009 @ 4:11 pm
I see what you’re saying, but in this specific case, she really and truly does want him to stop what he’s doing — in that particular moment. I assume that afterward she is glad for him having pushed her past where she thought she could go, but that’s something I have yet to discuss with her. There is some convoluted (and sometimes questionable) psychology that goes along with many M/s relationships — if your happiness comes from someone else’s happiness, and it makes them happy to push you past the point where you want to go, is that healthy (for you or them)?
You make a good point though. Communication is absolutely necessary, and though there are some frameworks and guidelines that are common (contracts, safewords, etc.), everyone needs to use what works for them.
Comment by Sammael — November 10, 2009 @ 4:44 pm
I dunno, man. I don’t know the couple you’re talking about. I’m willing to believe she really and truly wants him to stop and it’s a bad relationship. I’m also willing to believe that she “really and truly wants him to stop” but is thrilled to find the one man who is truly pushing her to the uttermost.
In terms of pushing past the point you want to go …. I think all relationships are gonna require compromises. BDSM-related compromises make us a little more uneasy than most compromises, but I’m not sure that’s reasonable. I’m reminded of a conversation I had with a really smart Chicago BDSM scene figure, in which I said that I feel really uncomfortable when I hear about people agreeing to do BDSM even if they’re not into it because they want to save their marriage, etc.
He pointed out that plenty of people make terrible compromises for love/marriage. Suppose, he posited, your husband gets his dream job in — say — Kentucky. He says he’s going to Kentucky and you can come if you want. You hate Kentucky and living there is like death for you. Is he forcing you into an unethical choice? No, just a difficult one. My friend went on to compare doing BDSM to save a relationship to that and noted that while people may feel bad for someone who moves to Kentucky for her husband, they won’t call her a victim … so why feel so protective of sex partners who are willing to go further than they “really” want to?
I’m still not sure what I think about that, but it’s an interesting argument.
Comment by Clarisse — November 11, 2009 @ 2:06 pm
(1) you’re eliding all the tough questions about withdrawing consent and c/nc within the BDSM community. And it’s easy to get all SSC high horse and complain aobut the crazies, but it’s not just the crazies. I go no-safeword with my spouse every time she puts a gag in my mouth. I still have limits … I just trust her to decide where they are. Crazy? I sometimes mock the terminological history of SSC/RACK, but then again the terminological history exists because people got judgy about a few things, and one of those things was c/nc. But then, if c/nc is okay, what’s the basis to say the Goreans are crazy? And everyone thinks the Goreans are crazy.
(2) This right here is why commerce and sex are different. People get annoyed with me for my persistent sex exceptionalism, but the alternatives are all worse. In commerce, the alternatives are “stuck with the deal you struck” and “paternalistic meddling.” In sex, if we agree that sex is a special case, the alternative to either of those things is ongoing affirmative consent.
Comment by Thomas — November 12, 2009 @ 5:54 pm
@Thomas: (1) Could you be more specific about what I’m eliding?
Also, for the record, I actually don’t think all Goreans are crazy. :grin: I think they’ve got a different “cultural context”, if you will, and I am not particularly comfortable in that context, and I wouldn’t find it easy to negotiate within that context, but I know that many of them are comfortable and do negotiate with every appearance of ease.
(2) I think I’m starting to get what you mean by “sex exceptionalism” now. But (forgive me if you’ve covered this before, and feel free to provide links), how is it possible to have ongoing enthusiastic consent with something like a scar or a data trail? (I think it may be reasonable to encourage ongoing enthusiastic consent for something like a fetish photo shoot, but what if the photos have already been sold to a Big Company that won’t give them up?)
On another note, how does the ongoing enthusiastic consent model deal with someone who is legitimately afraid of losing hir partner if they don’t pretend they’re into it — say, a husband who pretends he’s okay with kink because he knows his wife will divorce him if he’s not into it? I’m not sure this question functionally changes whether addressed with ongoing affirmative consent or the “traditional” model.
I’m also interested in your thoughts on the writer’s question.
Comment by Clarisse — November 13, 2009 @ 10:53 am
Clarisse, these paragraphs are about consent and BDSM:
“The ability to withdraw consent is one of the cornerstones of BDSM communication. (In a hypothetical world that did a good job of teaching vanilla relationship communication, I’d think it would be one cornerstone of that, too.) Hence our most basic tactic — safewords, which even most mainstream folks have heard about by now. There are some tricky aspects of using safewords well: you want to ensure that the safeword is easily pronounced, for instance; you want to ensure that both parties have access to some kind of safeword-signal at all times, even when (for example) gagged. Most importantly, you want to ensure that all parties feel comfortable safewording. This is often the hardest part, since (for example) bottoms can have a ton of pride wrapped up in not safewording, or be so desperate to please the top that they’ll feel guilty for safewording. (And tops may feel as though, since they’re “in charge”, they have no “reason” or “right” to safeword.)
Ultimately, I think all those issues come down to mastering good communication tactics and learning to read one’s partner. For instance, I’ve had a number of tops stop the scene before I safeworded because they accurately sensed my distaste before I was sure we should stop (and I’ve done the same myself, while topping).”
What I thought you were eliding was the issue of c/nc, whether one can decide ahead of time that under certain circumstances, withdrawal of consent would not be recognized. You address directly whether the safework is a necessary condition for withdrawal, and those paragraphs seem to assume that it is a sufficient condition. I know you have too much background not to recognize that there’s more to it; and your comment makes clear you recognize that it’s impossible to withdraw consent to a scar after it has happened — some things are, to an extent, “buy the ticket, take the ride” (to borrow from Hunter S. Thompson) even in BDSM. And as we both know, not everyone plays with safewords, particularly in ongoing relationships — hell, I go no-s/w not infrequently with my spouse, with the understanding that I still have limits but I am trusting her completely and entirely to decide how much they can be pushed.
The post posits the ability to withdraw consent as a “cornerstone” of BDSM, and I think that implies a universality that isn’t there. (A broad statement like that might actually make more sense if you were a hardline opponent of c/nc — it would be a disputable claim, but a complete argument.)
The couples’ compromise is a hell of a problem. We have a society that pressures people to look only to one primary partner for their sexual and, to a large extent, emotional needs, which discourages polyamory. It also marginalizes BDSM. Some folks, though, are going to be unsatisfied if their sexual or emotional dynamics don’t include a form of power exchange or sensation play that they find fulfilling. Ideally, people would identify these things as dealbreakers before they agreed to spend their lives together, but they may not figure it out for a while, or they may change over time. My take on it is that people are never really going to do satifactory BDSM with a reluctant partner, so the compromise is more theoretical than real. If the non-kinky partner is game enough to learn to be a good top, then it’s probably because while it’s not their particular kink they’re fine with working with it. If the kinky partner is a top and the non-kinky partner doesn’t want to bottom, we’re probably too far into the abuse area for me to be okay with it. Those couples need to agree to make outside arrangements so everyone gets their needs met, or they need to split up. The media and even BDSM fiction may give us plenty of examples of folks coerced into bottoming who come to love it. That’s fiction. Mr. Benson doesn’t live here anymore — in fact, he never did.
Comment by Thomas — November 16, 2009 @ 11:10 am
The post posits the ability to withdraw consent as a “cornerstone” of BDSM, and I think that implies a universality that isn’t there. (A broad statement like that might actually make more sense if you were a hardline opponent of c/nc — it would be a disputable claim, but a complete argument.)
Hmm — but I think it is still a cornerstone of BDSM even for people who choose not to use safewords, because the BDSM default is to use a safeword. “Everyone knows” about safewords, and “everyone knows” that people who do BDSM use safewords. It’s the standard ….
You may be right that I am disappearing c/nc questions with that paragraph, but I think that’s not because I imply that withdrawing consent is a universal BDSM assumption — I’m pretty sure that it is. BDSMers who go into non-safeword territory are rejecting the social standard, not aligning with it.
So to my mind, the question becomes whether it is important for me to acknowledge cases outside the norm when I am trying to describe the norm. To flip the situation around, do you think it would be reasonable for me to say: “The fact that people can’t withdraw consent is one of the cornerstones of our society’s conceptions of sexuality,” and not to note that BDSM and other exceptional subcultures exist?
My take on it is that people are never really going to do satisfactory BDSM with a reluctant partner, so the compromise is more theoretical than real.
As someone who spent two years dating a guy not nearly as into BDSM as I am, I am tempted to agree, but then I’m a submissive. The cases that worry me are more the ones where the kinky partner is a top and may in fact end up getting off on the bottom’s reluctance, which, as you say, is getting uncomfortably far into the abuse area …. Maybe your approach, sex exceptionalism, is the solution to my Chicago friend’s Kentucky example from comment #6. But I almost feel as though it’s sex-negative to set sex apart like that, and act like it’s so different from everything else that needs negotiating as part of a relationship.
What if you are a top and your partner is trying to convince you that they’re okay with whatever, and you aren’t sure you believe them? If you’re afraid of being abusive, then is there a point at which refusal to top your partner — who, remember, is asking for it — becomes patriarchal & sex-negative?
Comment by Clarisse — November 16, 2009 @ 12:51 pm
What if you are a top and your partner is trying to convince you that they’re okay with whatever, and you aren’t sure you believe them? If you’re afraid of being abusive, then is there a point at which refusal to top your partner — who, remember, is asking for it — becomes patriarchal & sex-negative?
Tops can call red too. :) Or rather, just stop doing what they’re doing, or not do it in the first place. I say that if you’re a responsible top, and your partner is asking for something you’re not comfortable doing for any reason, then you shouldn’t do it. In that case, you communicate more.
That’s not to say that there’s no grey area. Being sure/unsure about something is a gradient, not a line. So I think it’s perfectly valid to say, “Okay, my partner obviously isn’t sure about this — it’s definitely not something (s)he would have come up with had I not brought up that it’s something I want to explore. But maybe (s)he’ll really like it after trying it, so let’s try it anyway, and go really slowly. Then if I sense that it’s just not working for my partner (or me), we stop and talk about it at an appropriate time.”
Comment by Sammael — November 16, 2009 @ 1:21 pm
Clarisse, I actually agree that the ability to withdraw consent is the norm; and certainly it’s not always necessary to describe exceptions when stating a norm. It’s just that when setting up two norms in opposition, that each admits of situational exceptions can be really important.
I think there is something paternalistic about refusing to top a willing partner because of a perhaps mistaken belief that ze is not really into it. But then, people can refuse to be sexual in any way with anyone at any time, for any reason, even the wrong reason.
Comment by Thomas — November 17, 2009 @ 10:02 am