*Editors note: A panelist's name was kept anonymous to protect his identity with his BDSM relationship.
Some people expressed concern about the definition of sexual consent within Bondage and Discipline, Dominance and Submission, Sadism and Masochism following the recent release of the film adaptation of the "50 Shades of Grey" series.
BDSM is a type of sexual relationship where the partners are either dominant or submissive and it can involve roleplaying and restraint.
At a panel April 14, the Office of Victim Services invited psychologists, students and BDSM advocates to speak about consent.
“Some people may misunderstand and think that when sex includes roleplaying or dominance and submission, that a person can do whatever they want to their partner, but that’s not the case," Allison Wynbissinger, Ball State’s victim advocate, said in an email. "Each party still needs to be able to say yes and agree to what is happening.”
Misconception of abuse
Susan Wright, a spokesperson for the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, said the biggest misconception people have is thinking BDSM is out of control or harmful to people.
“It’s a game people play,” Wright said. “They set out rules and they agree what kind of game they’re playing and they talk about it beforehand. Most times when people have sex, they don’t really talk about it beforehand. They feel the spark and … they get turned on and they don’t talk about, ‘This is what I like when I have sex’ and, ‘This is what my limits are with sex.’ That’s what people who do BDSM have to do, is talk about it first.”
She said with “vanilla sex,” or traditional sex, consent can be implied, and it isn’t always clear whether there could be coercion or fear involved.
When people come into the “kink community,” as Wright called it, she said they finally learn how to talk about sex, because it is not usually something that is taught.
“We have basically no sex education—how to be responsible, how to make sure you do have consent, how to talk about limits and what you really want,” Wright said.
She said for BDSM relationships, there can be consent for one thing, but not for another, and participants are supposed to respect those limits.
“We have a hard time trying to explain this to law enforcement and say this person was sexually assaulted,” Wright said. “They look at it and say ‘Well, they consented to a spanking, how are we going to be able to convince people that she also didn’t want to be sexually penetrated?’ But really it’s simple—she also didn’t consent to being sexually penetrated.”
Bernard Rhombus*, a speaker at last Tuesday’s panel, said in the BDSM community, consent is emphasized and is something that is constantly talked about.
Rhombus said for people who don’t understand the kink community and base what they know off of misconceptions, they tend to jump to the conclusion that people can’t be assaulted if they willingly enter that lifestyle, but that isn’t true.
“Within the community where everyone is supposed to be very hyper-aware of issues and boundary violation, there could be subtle things that to most people wouldn’t seem like a big deal, but would be considered unforgivable sins within the community inside that framework of protecting everyone,” Rhombus said.
Some of these “unforgivable sins” include stepping outside of the agreed-upon boundaries, even if it is a small boundary violation.
“Even if it doesn’t seem egregiously bad, anyone taking the liberties of someone else without having negotiated permission to do that ahead of time is considered forbidden,” he said.
Influencing beginners
Rhombus said while he had not read 50 Shades of Grey, he has heard enough about it to know some of its flaws, and how it doesn’t explain how what happens between Christian and Anna is abuse.
“That might unfortunately have the effect of introducing newcomers to the idea of kink play and relationships in the context of, ‘If [abuse] happens, it’s okay because it’s part of the lifestyle’, which is absolutely the opposite of the truth,” he said.
A big part of the BDSM lifestyle is the kink community, which Rhombus said has a huge impact on teaching new people about physical and psychological safety.
“When you engage in potentially dangerous play without having been mentored into it or been educated … that’s how abuse in the kink community happens. What happens in the book seems like an example of that,” Rhombus said. “I would be afraid of people being introduced to those kinds of practices through the book, so they might try it solo or try it in a way that’s abusive with their partners or makes them more accepting of abuse than they should be.”
Kiersten Baughman, a psychology professor who was also a speaker on the panel, researches the cultural factors that lead to high rates of domestic violence and sexual assault.
She said if a man believes he has to be a dominant and a woman believes she has to be a submissive, it could lead to abuse.
“When I see and read about 50 Shades [of Grey] and see, ‘Oh, I want to marry a guy like Christian Grey,’ I’ve seen that all over social media and that really outrages me because that’s the wrong message we want to be sending,” Baughman said. “No, that’s not love, that’s not a healthy relationship and it’s really dangerous for people who don’t know much about BDSM and what abuse looks like and what it doesn’t look like.”
Because of the negative stigma Baughman said is already associated with the BDSM community, she said the series and media portrays it as a normal part of BDSM, instead of it being seen as abuse.
“[The BDSM advocates] were very clear [at the panel] that consent is the number one thing in their community,” she said. “It has to be verbal, often written. Both parties have to be able to renege at any given time, and that’s their hallmark characteristic. The way 50 Shades [of Grey] portrays consent is not in alignment with the way the BDSM community operates.”
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