ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the social construction of ‘sexual violence’ in BDSM (bondage/discipline, dominance/submission, sadism/masochism), focusing on the question of consent. I argue that the issue of responsibility for when someone consent to unwanted BDSM cannot easily be agreed upon with reference to BDSM moral codes alone. The chapter draws on qualitative interview data with BDSM practitioners as well as victims of IPV. Within BDSM-communities, consent is understood as the most significant marker distinguishing the practice from ‘sexual violence’. In this chapter, I problematise what I understand as the ‘fetishising’ consent, within the context of, seemingly, rather sophisticated ethical negotiations over issues concerning sexuality and intimacy in BDSM. Here negotiations are part of a larger trend in societies where individualist constructions of the autonomous self dominate, often holding individuals responsible for consenting to unwanted sex. Also, due to stigmatisation of BDSM as a former psychiatric diagnosis in mainstream society, psychological troubles related to the practice become taboo within the BDSM-communities, turning ‘abusive BDSM’ into an anomaly. Alongside this rather problematic categorisation in black and white, my study also shows how practitioners of BDSM engage in the cultivation of skilful risk management through the shades of grey in-between.
