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ORIGINAL: BlackPhx

Honsoku

In the majority of states if not all, what we do is illegal. Just as the majority of states contend that no one with a terminal disease has the right to take their own life and there are only 2 that accept that a doctor can aid a patient with a terminal disease to die, none accept that we can consent to assault. If we are dancing in a club, at home, in privacy of any sort, and we attract the attention of a Police Officer, the one doing the whipping is going to jail under DV if not assault and battery. No longer is it the perogative of the person who was assaulted and battered in a D.V. case to drop or press charges. Those charges are brought by the state. However, the courts will in many cases at least listen if the partner is affirming there was consent on both sides for BDSM. They will stop listening the minute the one assaulted or battered says I withdrew consent. Contracts and video tapes of consent aside, the moment consent is withdrawn, jeopardy applies. If something goes wrong and the person says stop and the person does not stop, legally it becomes, rape, assault and battery and can in certain cases be charged as attempted homicide. Not something fun to try and prove it wasn't. Not unless you can get a jury of your true peers, others who are Dominants, Subs, Edge Players, etc.

Many doctors in E.R.'s will if they feel it is legitimately a case of BDSM not assault and battery or DV turn a blind eye, patch up the person and send them on their way. If they even think that it may have been D.V., they are obligated to report it or try to obtain help for the victim. This is a judgement call as they are when it may be a case of child abuse but not a gunshot wound.

But the line you quoted was about Consent revoked becoming Abuse. It does, legalities aside, if there is no meeting of the minds, no consent, then one person is suffering abuse. Abuse of trust, of self,  and the destruction of the relationship dynamic. The law has ruled, at least here in Florida and a few other states that I know of, that even if in mid-coitus, 5 seconds from orgasm, your partner (male or female) says Stop, No, or I don't want this and you do not immediately withdraw..it is rape.  Consent withdrawn. Not pretty, not fair, but reality.

This is why I say ALWAYS Consentual. Everything else is negotiable. The safety we agree on, the intruments, the scene, the level of play, on the edge or safely slightly strawberry, everything is subject to what we involved in the dance at that moment consider Sane, but everything must contain a level of Consent.

poenkitten

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Almost unanimously people have pointed to consent as the difference between abuse and d/s. I disagree with this on two counts. Firstly, many abusive relationships are consensual in nature. The person being "abused" frequently will not leave of their own volition and if removed will seek to return to the "abuser". How is this not consenting to the relationship? If your response is that because they return out of fear, how is that different than ensuring obedience through the threat of punishment? How many of you would lose respect for your dominant if he did not enforce the rules?

Secondly, many d/s relationships have non-consensual treatment as a major part of the relationship (at the very best, consent gets really fuzzy). I am reminded of something Tigrita said; "I don't really want to be submissive, I want to be dominated". The act of dominating another implies a lack of choice on the part of the person being dominated. There is an underlying current of force, of "make me", in a lot of d/s relationships. If force is used (whether it is psychological or physical), consent is arguably non-existent, as you can not consent to force else it is no longer force. If you fall back on "i consent to being there" then go back to the previous paragraph.

The difference is not consent but content. If you are content with your overall treatment, it isn't abuse. If you aren't content, then it is abuse (in the context of this thread).

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ORIGINAL: Honsoku

You talk about consent saying legalities aside and note that the legality fails in a lot of cases, then you use the legal limits of consent to support your argument. Using the legal limits of consent is hazy at best as large chunks of BDSM violate the legal limits of consent. By law (in most states), a person can not consent to being harmed. BDSM in general, and any kind of force play in particular, tap dances on consent's grave.

To quote myself:

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Almost unanimously people have pointed to consent as the difference between abuse and d/s. I disagree with this on two counts. Firstly, many abusive relationships are consensual in nature. The person being "abused" frequently will not leave of their own volition and if removed will seek to return to the "abuser". How is this not consenting to the relationship? If your response is that because they return out of fear, how is that different than ensuring obedience through the threat of punishment? How many of you would lose respect for your dominant if he did not enforce the rules?

(Condensed and Snipped)

It may indeed seem murky to say laying the legalities aside and then note that the legalities fail in a lot of cases. That is partially because the LAW tries to regulate human sexuality without the lawmakers understanding the differences or embracing them.

Our Laws are enforced erractically. One officer may give you a ticket for going 10 miles over the speed limit another only a warning. They have discretionary powers and those same officers who might charge you with Domestic Violence, Kidnapping and other wonderful things, may upon looking at all your lovely toys, and a subject who bounces up and down saying "I said yes, I was having fun", turn around and say, "keep the noise down and the curtains drawn". Same discretionary powers in effect, even though they are required to bring in a person involved in D.V. They have the power to lay the legalities aside, or not.

There are an awful lot of people who have discretionary power over our lives. Boss's who can fire you for what you posted to a newsgroup or forum. Doctors who can report suspected DV or rape (rape fantasies are not uncommon and the difference between real and staged is not medically evident). Teachers who can misunderstand what a child has said and tie you up with Child Welfare. Neighbors who hear thumping and slaps and crying through a wall. Each and every one of them can cause us problems even with clear evidence of consent. It's not pretty, it's not right, but until the laws change we have to remain aware of them, and make sure that consent is active.

Here in Florida if you are sitting in a bathroom stall and tapping a foot, playing with/fixing your zipper, humming or several other things they consider suspicious in a Mens Room, you can be arrested for soliciting homosexual acts even though you are just sitting and waiting to finish what you went in there to start without sex on your mind. This while Sodomy is no longer illegal in private by the ruling of the Supreme court. So far they haven't targeted womens rooms and I hope they don't cause when we go in, often we are pretty late in discovering there is a serious lack of paper and we may reach under a stall wall and ask some one to pass some over.

I agree with you that BDSM tap dances on consent's grave at best, considering the laws as they stand now. But frankly it is all we have until such time as the laws are challenged and changed to reflect consent.

As for many abusive relationships being consentual, I must strenuously disagree. They can be coercive but not consentual. By the time an abuser begins to regularly abuse his partner, he has already destroyed self confidence in that person. They begin to believe it is their fault. Sam is a great provider, it is me, I should have, shouldn't have, I wore, I failed, I forgot, I deserve. They begin to make excuses for it, He was having a bad day, night, got fired, stress, the kids, the bills. It is a slow process and can include strikes, beatings before the full breakdown of the persons will/esteem, but you would be surprised at how much shame in the beginning that such happened plays into it, and family pressures, you married him, work it out. Also please dont forget the honeymoon stage, where the abuser can actually seem contrite, apologetic, tender. By the time the abuse is in full cycle the spirit is broken, one child may always be with the abuser to maintain control, and fear not love is the base. I can't leave, the kids need their father, I have no job skills, no place to go, no resources, he's always there.

Ok they finally get pulled out of there, rescued by an officer or Abuse Service. They are sheltered along with 25 other women and their children, have no money, often only the clothes on their backs, and few resources. Most of the services are geared for women and children, but men, hetero and gay are also abused and there is virtually No Support for them.  The Services do their best to get those they service welfare, medicaid, treatment and counseling, possibly even job skills, but they have left their homes, are not going to heal over night, and the abuser is promising it will never happen again. The police held them overnight in jail and they are out before the abused are even settled. MAYBE they draw some jail time and anger management, but that isn't going to change a lifetime of abusing. At the point a person is finally able to escape their abuser they are at the most dangerous point in the relationship. Death is a real threat, and restraining orders mean nothing, they don't stop bullets or knives. Abusers have stalked their victims and killed them after they have "gotten away".

When I worked for a RCSA center we had one woman brought in wrapped in a cast and a blanket. That was all she had. Her boyfriend had moved in with her and she spent 2 years handcuffed to a bed when he was not there, chained to him when he was, and the phone was locked in a safe when he was out of the house. The police found not one stitch of womens clothing in the house, no shoes, no coat,  nothing. That blanket came from them, she had not been allowed anything when he was out of the house. She weighed 90 lbs and should have weighed 140. He found, stalked and killed her a year after he got out of jail. He won't get out again, but, neither will she.

poenkitten

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ORIGINAL: Honsoku

Erin Pizzey: Prone to Violence (full text online) talks about the cycle of violence addiction that can brew in violent couples. It's not just because of coercion, manipulation, low self worth, or lack of options. There are women who will actively seek out abusive relationships, because they get high off the abuse. Sometimes it's the pain, sometimes it's the endorphin rush just before the abuse begins. People can consent to abusive relationships. Hell, some will actively seek them out. There are people who will willingly abuse themselves, why is it hard to grasp that others would seek out someone to do it to them?

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But, arguing this point with Alumbardo is totally masochistic.  He has no ability to hear and quoting Lawerence which only applies to sodomy and has nothing to do with actions that cause injury is his repeated response.

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Lawrence explicitly overruled Bowers, holding that it had viewed the liberty interest too narrowly. The majority held that intimate consensual sexual conduct was part of the liberty protected by substantive due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. Lawrence has the effect of invalidating similar laws throughout the United States that purport to criminalize homosexual activity between consenting adults acting in private. It may also invalidate the application of sodomy laws to heterosexual sex based solely on morality concerns.


.........Consent is far from a straw argument. Without consent between the people involved, WIITWD is illegal.

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ORIGINAL: BlackPhx
Ahh, but now you must ask, are they "victims" who learn to tolerate and accept the abuse, OR masochist/submissives who have found Abusers instead of the BDSM community? Look around you, from the mildest service submissive to the deepest pain slut, 19 to 99 aren't we all looking for persons who will hold us in some regard, fulfill our needs in ways that involve whips, chains, collars and cuffs. Aren't these forums and sites filled with Doms and Dominas, Tops and Masters all of whom in the eyes of the law and vanilla people would be Abusers? Precisely her definition it seems.

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While it is safe and sensible it is not as thrilling as being with a person that hovers at the edge of out of control. As an affirmed "nice guy" I have seen dozens of women I grew up with literally throw themselves at men (boys actually) that were really really bad for them. They lied to them, did drugs, hit them, cheated on them, and at any moment would explode in a fury of violence that could have cost them thier lives.

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We have learned a lot since 1971-1982.

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The internet if nothing else has allowed people to connect, usually in some safety and learn about alternatives to finding abusers to answer the needs deep inside them. But there are still people who will find abusers before they find responsible people to answer those needs. To someone who saw abuse as a child, who lost her grandmother to it and worked with abused children and women, I would look like an abused wife especially after Master and I dance to both our satisfaction. Many of us would, who engage in sharps play, whips, clamps, branding, burns, and yes, those endorphins are wonderful. We are addicted to them and to the morphine like feelings they engender. So are joggers and marathoners. Whether I would be a sado-masochist without my parents influence, I really couldn't say, but I suspect the answer is yes. I have lived an extremely vanilla life, and one of rocky road with extra nuts, I prefer this. too long with out the dance and I become hungry in ways that have little to do with food.
But there is a major difference between my childhood and now, it's called consent. As a child not only did I not have consent, I had no desire for what was done. Now, I have a choice, and Master is that choice. By Law, I do not have it. But I am with him by choice, his and mine and while our Dances may be abusive in the eyes of the law to us they are as precious as the times we spend doing nothing more than hugging and cuddling.

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I suspect Ms Pizzey would not understand those of us who engage in this life choice, She would see us as abused, addicted, deluded women and men seeking only to repeat the lessons learned in childhood. She would not be able to explain those who had happy childhoods, normal ones who seek this from both sides of the coin and that is a pity, because what we are is a pantheon of human sexuality, a cornucopia of delights, needs and desires who have found safe ways to express it and find our happiness.

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poenkitten ( wondering if he has ever explored the furor the Kinsey Report caused between 1948 and 1953)