Safe, Sane and Consensual.
These are the BDSM/CP maxims that I stick to rigidly. I never play with anyone who won’t abide by them. Play is sometimes a serious sport and you want to know that if you are subbing, you are safe and vice versa.
However, at the same time, non-consensuality rings every bell I have. I like to be taken, used, punished, abused. I like to have to do it. To be made to do something bad. I don’t do it with everyone – I have to like, trust and know a player well before I try this type of play because it’s very intense and difficult to do.
I get round this by always agreeing in advance what I want to do with a playmate – not a step-by-step guide, but an idea of what I like and dislike and then let the Dom run with it. I can always safeword if it’s too much. But generally, it’s not.
To a certain extent, most BDSM play can be seen as non-consensual, from the schoolgirl who reluctantly goes to see her Housemaster, knowing full well that he is going to cane her and she will have to bend over for him, through the PA who agrees to be spanked by her boss to avoid the sack or the Regency woman who submits meekly to her husband’s lusts because it’s her sacred duty. But what I’m talking about here is the more serious stuff – the kidnap victim who finds herself at the sadistic whim of her kidnappers, the spy who is captured by the enemy and interrogated, the ‘stranger’ who catches you in an alleyway and you can’t get away.
In real life, I can’t think of anything more terrible or horrible to be used, sexually or in other ways, when you don’t consent to it. It’s a awful crime to inflict on a person. But in a scene, being roughly grabbed by the hair, slapped viciously across the face, having my arms viciously twisted behind my back, being dragged to the ground, my clothing roughly rearranged, the kicking, the struggle, the need to escape, the futile failure to do so, the reluctant acknowledgement that this is going to happen whether you like it or not…..oh my. Oh My God.
I have no idea why I find this exciting and in a way, am slightly ashamed of doing so. For a long time, when I was first into the scene, I found it difficult to admit to and to ask Doms about for fear of seeming strange or twisted. Which in a way I am – but now I understand that it’s an essential part of my psyche and that it’s ok to indulge it in controlled conditions.
Sometimes, I wonder what it would be like to do a scene where it’s not consensual. Where I really have no idea what’s going to happen and suddenly – it does. But it takes a certain type of Dom to feel comfortable in that role. And what’s scary is that I have no idea whether I’d actually like to meet them or if they are better stored in the darker recesses of my mind.
Who knows….?
Jessica, that is a question that most of us pervs ask ourselves at times.
When Harry canes Rachel with the Dragon cane that really turns me on, at least half the pleasure comes from the fact that I know Rachel is being turned on as well.
Some would say that makes me a monster.
I think the most important thing is feeling comfortable in your own skin.
I believe that it is better that some of our darker fantasies are left in the more shadowed corners of our souls.
Sorry to have gone on so long, your posts are thought provoking.
Warm hugs,
Paul.
Thought-provoking post. I’m guessing there are two rather different scenarios here – a more extreme scene for people who’ve already played in a “consensually non-consenting” way, or a scene in which a girl is abused by a dom whom she’d never previously met.
I’m guessing the former would always leave the residual feeling of confidence and familiarity at the back of the girl’s mind during the scene – and I’m not sure whether that’s darker (and hotter) (i.e. the “breakdown of the former trust”) than the stranger scenario.
Mmm, getting all hot and flustered here..
Thanks to both Paul and Abel for their comments here. This was a hard post to write, and especially to sum up thoughts that were quite complex in a blog-length piece.
I think I am with Paul – that a genuine incident with a stranger would be quite horrid. I think doing a heavy scene with lots of non-consensual aspects with someone who you already know well is also interesting. There would be the sheer shock as someone you thought liked you very much, seriously took advantage of you…
However, I am intigued by Abel’s suggestion about being played with/abused by a stranger Dom when someone you knew and trusted was present. I think (like Abel) I would find this exceptionally hot, because you know you are safe – but at the same time, it’s sort of non-consensual.
Thanks to both – certainly some food for thought for me for future scenes!
Jess xx
Jessica,
I think the main difference here is that the non-consent in a scene is controlled. While I may love being bound and at the mercy of my dom, I would not want to be at the mercy of someone that I didn’t trust to stop or not to go to far. Rape is about having power over someone else. Submission is about giving power to someone you trust.
Love your site.
Amy