The Safeword Dilemma

This piece is a part of the Safe/Ward conversation started over on Purrversatility, and given quite a lot of bang over on Salon. The focus of the conversation and the resulting campaign is the proliferation of assault in the allegedly safe spaces in the BDSM scene: the pushing of boundaries, the ignoring of safewords, the sex that’s easier to agree to than to explain why you don’t want it. It’s a conversation worth having, and I suspect that many of my readers will have missed it going on around them. Follow the links, it’ll make you think.

I’m not talking about people who claim to practice BDSM with no safewords. Because no matter how deep you travel into dark scary places, there is always a safeword: “I withdraw my consent, everything you do from now on is assault.” Or, say, “Stop, or I’m calling the police.” No safewords, my arse. Anyway, I’m not talking about that.

Nor is this about safewords being ignored, as I have no first-hand experience with this. (My boyfriend does; he may talk about it when he’s ready.)

The part of the conversation I’ve found myself nodding most vigourously to was the atmosphere being created in which people feel unable to safeword, because it’s impolite, or it’s unwelcome, or it will break the atmosphere, or result in excessive sulking, or will make the fragile edifice of the top’s ego crumble into tiny pieces.

Three points of information:

1. I find safewording really easy. It has no emotional weight for me. I don’t feel inferior for not being able to take as much pain as the top wants to dish out. Nor do I enter deep headspace in which I might find communication physically problematic. When I’ve had enough, I say so. I can’t count how many times I have successfully and peacefully stopped scenes that had ceased to be enjoyable.

2. Keeping the habit of safewording is extremely important to me, because I enjoy consensual non-consent scenes, in which I like to be taken to dark places. I want to be known, on precedent, as the sort of person who will definitely stop play if I’m uncomfortable. I want tops to be able to rely on this, because it’s something I need when I top.

3. Even considering the above, I’ve had a number of spankings I continued to take because to try and stop would have resulted in aggravation and emotional fallout I wasn’t ready to face. I feel bad about this; it felt like a cowardly choice afterwards. Perhaps it’s what allowed me to eventually develop the aforementioned safeword hair trigger.

I couldn’t help but notice that where the ease of safewording is concerned, I am, let’s just say, unusual in my local community. This makes me quite cross. You may have heard me rant about this in person, as it’s a pet topic of mine. I’ve also written about it in a less blunt way over on The Spanking Writers. I’ve found my dedication to safewords quite difficult to keep or defend on a few occasions.

I’m going to give you some direct quotes I’ve heard in the scene just in the last 3 years.*

Said by tops:

“If you’re just going to safeword, we may as well not start.”
“She’s a serious player, she doesn’t safeword.”
“It’s not a punishment if you safeword, is it?”
“But I was so looking forward to this!” (Unsaid: “Until you safeworded and ruined everything.”)
“You’re being difficult.”
Me: “Safeword.” Him: *Flounce*
Me: “Safeword.” Her: *Tears*

Said by bottoms:

“I know I have a safeword, but I wouldn’t use it.”
“I don’t like safewords.” (Times many.)
“Safewording just doesn’t feel very submissive.”
“He doesn’t deal well with safewords.”
“I didn’t safeword. It wasn’t an option.”

Let me tell you, then, how easy it’s been to remain the sort of safe, responsible bottom who can be relied upon to safeword when she needs to. Let me tell you about the sulking divas with canes I’ve had to deal with, until in the last couple of years I drastically limited the circle of people I will bottom to. Let me tell you about comforting friends who aren’t quite as bloody-minded or determinedly blunt as me.**

Do you know what’s interesting? None of the scary shit ever happened to me in my professional spanking work. It has to people close to me, but never to me. Go figure.

*Attributions are missing because I have no permission to attach names to quotes; with some of them, I don’t care to ask, or ever speak to the person again.

**This is where I’d also like to acknowledge the lovely, careful, responsible tops I’ve enjoyed playing with ever since I emerged onto the scene 12 years ago, but this is not the place.

Obscenity trial: R v Peacock and the false dawn of the pornographers

Things the #ObscenityTrial have taught me: assume
a higher level of general ignorance & prejudice about BDSM
than I had previously thought. (@electronic_doll)

Browsing spanking forums, you sometimes come across the sentiment that these days the world at large is quite tolerant and accepting of alternative sexualities. While this statement is impossible to prove either right or wrong – have you ever tried asking “the world at large” its opinion? – From time to time we can’t fail but be reminded that we are not yet living in the fluffy sex-positive paradise of our Twitter and Fetlife feeds.

FACT: Some types of spanking and BDSM are still illegal in the UK, according to precedent set by R v Brown (“the Spanner case”). While it’s unlikely that the police will raid your David Copperfield-themed house party, they can, because in a sexual context consent is not a defence against a charge of assault causing actual bodily harm.

FACT: An escort and porn-maker Michael Peacock (known charmingly as Sleazy Michael) last week stood trial for producing DVDs that featured certain sex scenes between consenting adults. None of the acts were illegal to perform in private, but, according to the prosecution, they fell under the legal definition of obscene materials, so into the dock Mr Peacock went.

If you live in the UK and spend any time on Twitter, you already know what happened next: the jury of Mr Peacock’s peers spent several days watching footage of whipping, fisting, watersports and CBT, and then, after a deliberation lasting less time than a leisurely BDSM scene, returned the verdict of “not guilty”. But I’m also guessing that quite a few of you haven’t heard of this case, because it’s had quite modest coverage by mainstream news outlets – a footnote rather than any kind of core issue.

Most of the mainstream media commentary has come after the trial’s end. From my left-wing Twitter bubble, the pieces that have been the most visible are the ones that approve of the acquittal and question whether the Obscene Publications Act, 1959 – the law according to which the prosecution had been brought – is fit for purpose in this day and age, in New Statesman, the Guardian and Yahoo News.

It’s the last link that I’d like to bring to your attention, because of the comments you find under the article. After the lovely time the whole of Twitter had had bashing the prosecutors on the #obscenitytrial hashtag, you get quite a shock to the system learning that -

“When we make obscenity the norm we have hit rock bottom and there is only one way to go, do we realy want filth as an every day occurence, do we want our children to think it’s ok to swear fornicate and generaly live a degrading existance, soddam and gomoragh spring to mind” (Anonymous commenter, 32 likes and 8 dislikes at the time of writing);

and that -

“We are existing in a depraved and corrupted society. That said, it is of no surprise that levels of acceptability are in line with low-life corruption, depravity and pornography.” (Stewart, 8 likes, 1 dislike).

Now, reading comments on Yahoo is a special kind of self-torture, and a film of the process could stand a good chance to be prosecuted under the extreme porn legislation, but it doesn’t do anyone any good to try and think them out of existence. Your Twitter feed is not yet an indication of any sort of general consensus.

That said, there’s been some amusing things scrolling past me in the feeds:

Farcical #ObscenityTrial seeking to ban supposedly “depraving” videos involves, err, showing the videos to the jury. Will it deprave them? – @wallaceme

An excellent question, also frequently raised in relation to the UK censoring body BBFC: if certain material has the potential to “deprave and corrupt” the viewer, as per the obscenity legislation, do censors and juries become corrupt after watching a certain volume of obscene material, and do they therefore need regularly swapping out, like equipment damaged by wear and tear?

If it’s illegal to distribute DVDs of gay fisting #obscenitytrial I spy a gap in the market for live theatre shows. – @Andrew_Taylor

Pause as your narrator stops to fantasise about the possibilities.

Reading up on #ObscenityTrial and wishing I was a criminal law academic. Lack of BDSM cases in corporate finance law. – @lawvaughan

This made me smile with sympathy. Imagine my frustration, as a law post-grad, at needing to concentrate on the fair trial cases when in the very next chapter, in the privacy chapter, there was an amazing wealth of things I could read about the Spanner case.

And speaking of the Spanner case:

With the good result in #ObscenityTrial, is our culture now ready to reverse R v Brown? – @rebellionkid

A pertinent question, and one very much of interest to us in the spanking scene. It is, I think, telling that nobody was prosecuted for the acts in Peacock’s DVDs, even though to an uninformed observer they look comparable to the acts in Spanner. (Here, pumping the testicles with saline. There, nailing testicles to a board. From my non-testicle-wearing point of view, these are beasts from the same species, if not necessarily the same genus.) Don’t get too excited, though, because according to Myles Jackman aka @obscenitylawyer, quoted in “Solicitors Journal”, the Law Commission “wasn’t able to say whether it would undertake a review of sexual consent to assault laws”. And why would it, when it doesn’t have to? Imagine trying to sell that change in the law to the Daily Fail readers, without the iron-clad excuse of “the jury made us do it”.

While the Peacock case isn’t precedent-setting, in the world of laws regulating porn a change now seems inevitable. Without wishing to create a hierarchy of fetishes wherein one thing is pervier than the next, fisting, ball-busting and watersports are pretty niche. If they can’t bring a guilty verdict, it doesn’t leave much for the vice officers to rely on for their bread-and-butter obscenity convictions. The Guardian believes The Obscene Publications Act “to be on its last legs”, and the Solicitors Journal piece mentioned above promises a review of enforcement guidance.

Now, is this all cause for celebration?

For Michael Peacock, undoubtedly. For porn producers, quite possibly, because, in the words of Jane Fae, “it is fear of prosecution that keeps many film-makers in check and, with the OPA now looking very much “busted flush” – the end, and possibly a new beginning, are very much on the cards.” We in the BDSM scene bubble may well celebrate with them – for a while. Don’t forget, though, the new “extreme porn” law, which is alive, well, and according to the same article by Jane Fae, is responsible for around 1000 prosecutions a year: “this represents a big shift in legal thinking, away from the idea that the publisher, as part of a business enterprise, is likely to be better advised legally and so more responsible for what he or she produces, and toward the consumer, for whom no excuse (including accidental downloading of material) will now suffice.” The consumer: this would be any of you, I’m afraid. I know you wouldn’t knowingly download any extreme porn, but the warm and righteous feeling of being innocent is not much consolation when your boss rings you up because she saw your name in the newspaper, but she can’t get through because you’re on the phone to BastardLoanSharks.com trying to find the cash to cover solicitors’ fees.

You may have noticed that up until now I haven’t mentioned that Peacock’s DVDs featured, only and specifically, acts between gay men. Regardless of the equality laws – and without wanting to make assumptions about the personal prejudices of the jury – one could be excused for thinking that this could have turned out badly for Peacock, just like it had for Brown et al in Spanner. But you know what, I think in this specific instance the all-male cast has probably saved the defence’s case.

Take this précis of the summing up:

Prosecution: “This man is in a great deal of pain. Look at his gaping anus. The scene depicts rape. This is obscene.” Defence: “This man is an actor performing in a fantasy.” Jury: “Not guilty.” (Based on live tweets from the courtroom by @lexingtondymock and @NichiHodgson).

I would argue that if the questioned acts had been visited upon women, this defence wouldn’t have necessarily flown: from my observations, men are seen as more capable of consenting to violent acts, inflicted by either men or women. Far from being hobbled by homophobia, Peacock has inadvertently and unconsciously benefited from the absence of the patronising overprotective attitude towards female actors.

But that’s just guesswork and grumbling. What we do have is a non-guilty verdict for an innocent man, and a hint of positive legal change in the air. A great day for lawyers and pornographers alike. Do let’s enjoy it in our scene bubble.

And yet: remember Spanner. Remember the standard of proof required in “extreme porn” cases. Don’t grow complacent, because they fucking won’t.

Fun spanking boys

I was lazily browsing the keywords that had brought people to my site, when one search phrase jumped out at me.

“Is it fun spanking boys?” an unknown searcher had asked Google.

If by “boys” we mean “grown consenting men”, then I would like to take a moment to let my eyes glaze over in a lust-filled daydream. How much fun is spanking boys, let me count the ways…

Purely physically, it’s a real sensual treat to have a boy over my lap: a long body, so large and present, hard in places, soft where it matters. Buttocks exposed, skin not yet reddened, but about to bounce and wobble under my hand. Watching marks appear and fill with colour as the spanking progresses, hearing his breath catch as he registers the pain, little noises he lets himself make. A slight tingling in my palm; knowing that his bottom is tingling much more acutely and urgently.

And then there’s the emotional side: feeding on his trust, receiving his vulnerability, alleviating his caution, gently enveloping him in my care, floating on his submission.

Yes, unknown searcher, it’s lots of fun, spanking boys. If you’re a boy, somebody will have tons of fun spanking you, and if you’re the one wondering about giving some lucky boy a spanking – go for it, it’s great. (Then come back and tell me all about it.)

Be my heterosexual Valentine: calling out M & S

First, a quick straw poll of the queer women reading this: would you be thrilled to receive cufflinks as your romantic Valentine treat from your girl? Now the queer dudes: what would you say about a lovely delicate bracelet?

I suppose, there are some gay girls who’d love a pair of smart cufflinks, as well as guys who may find a spot in their heart for a chain wristlet with a heart charm, in which case you’ll be happy to go ahead and throw 5 quid at the set of Marks & Spencer’s very red Valentine crackers.

Me, if I wanted a piece of gooey schmaltz to share with my girlfriend on Monday, I’d have to thwart my middle-class urges and go further afield than my local Marks’s. Because, look:

You get a bracelet and cuff-links. Oh, you’re dating somebody of the same sex as you? Tough.

It may come as a shock to Marks & Spencer that non-heterosexual people would ever consider shopping there. Maybe the thinking is that all the exciting, counter-culture gays wouldn’t step over the threshold of the fortress of conventionality such as an M&S shop. Or maybe it’s that it’s more convenient for the marketing department to erase the queer folk from their customer base completely.

It’s so easy to put some theatrical rhetoric on the diversity page of your website, saying things like “Not only are we responsive to the needs of our employees and customers but we also take pride in the role we play in the community at large. Because of this we value diversity very highly.” In your employees, perhaps, because they can sue you. Your customers? It’s much easier just to go with the thoughtless corporate discrimination.

Tell me though, dear Marks and Sparks, if you prick us, do we not bleed? If you expend a huge marketing budget to convince us to be more in love on a particular day of the year, do we not go hunting for achingly corny trinkets?

It’s fine, I didn’t want the crackers. I don’t have a girlfriend right now, plus I’d like to think there’s actually a limit to my sentimentality. Yet, if this time next year I’m dating a girl who desires to be showered with heart-shaped knick-knacks and silly little gifts, I fully intend to spoil her. It’s a shame Marks & Spencer don’t want my custom.

Kink, virginity and big-tittied whores

There once was a girl who had a hot fantasy about being ceremonially deflowered in front of an audience. Luckily, this girl – Nicki Blue – knew exactly who to approach to make this happen for her: she talked to the producers of Kink.com family of websites. (She had already modelled for them.) They have arranged to web-cast the ceremony live on The Upper Floor. The show is scheduled for 15 January, 7pm*.

A press release followed. It included lines like:

Kink.com will stream the deflowering of young virgin Nikki** Blue in a ritualistic ceremony live on the Internet on Jan. 15 at 7 p.m.

The ceremony will be held on The Upper Floor of Kink.com’s headquarters, the San Francisco Armory. Prior to the event, a trained expert will insert Kink.com’s official hymen-cam to validate that Blue’s hymen is still in place and that she is a true virgin. Once her hymen is confirmed, the evening will proceed, the company said.

And:

Kink.com founder Peter Acworth adds, “…“We strive each and every day to bring the best possible content to our customers and sacrificing Nikki’s innocence is in perfect alignment with what our fans expect and deserve.”

Now, take a minute to examine your reaction to the text above. Does it seem to you like it, well, smells a bit? I mean, “true virgin”? What is this, a recipe for a philosopher’s stone?

Internet being wonderful, there’s been some seriously sharp analysis of why this marketing around the live show is, essentially, toxic. The best article I’ve seen comes from Miss Maggie Mayhem, who, in a few paragraphs, explains why hymens have nothing to do with virginity, why equating not having vaginal sex with virginity is delusional, and why the wording of the press release doesn’t align with the self-proclaimed sex-positive image of the Kink.com enterprise. I highly recommend having a read.

Violet Blue has linked to it; the high profile of her blog soon drew many interesting comments – including one from Peter Acworth, the CEO of Kink Inc. He said: “We did admittedly make a mess of the marketing surrounding this event, and we are now working to change it.” Change it they did; Kink’s official blog now announces simply:

Kink.com, the largest producer of authentic kinky adult entertainment, has announced that it was chosen by 21-year-old virgin Nikki Blue as her venue of choice for her first-ever vaginal penetration in a live ceremony on the Internet.

They listened. Good for them. They’re still a bit too focused on the hymen thing, but whatever, listening to reason is a good sign.

However, one piece of commentary that particularly struck a chord with me came from Bacchus of Eros Blog:

“The Kink people have always been much better pornographers than they have been marketers. Ham-fisted off-key marketing from them we have seen before.”

No fucking kidding, boys and girls. The thing that struck me first of all when the entire piece of internet drama came to my attention, was that anyone was surprised that the wording of Kink’s marketing campaign is a great deal less than feminist and sex-positive.

Frankly, compared to some of their other stuff, it could have been utterings of angels.

Let’s consider the writing inside Kink’s affiliate programme.

In case you’re not an adult webmaster: an affiliate programme allows you to earn money by promoting a website, and a big programme – as Kinky Dollars happens to be – will usually have a library of tools that helps automate the affiliates’ job. In this instance, I’m looking at the lists of free galleries of photos and videos that one can link to; these come with off-the-shelf descriptions of the content of each gallery. For example, a spanking gallery might come with the description, “a petulant young lady having her bottom spanked over her jeans.” A lazy pornographer can grab these for her site. It’s marketing, you see?

Let’s cast an eye over what sort of descriptions we can find inside Kinky Dollars.

- “Sexy MILF is bound , stripped, and made to carry a mattress through the city so everyone can see what a huge whore she is!” (They’re sure she has children? No? Oh, she’s supposed to, because she isn’t a teenager any more? And don’t get me started on huge whores, or even medium-sized ones.)

- “Tea Blondie gets fucked on the street by BIG BLACK COCK!!!” (OMG, disembodied enthnically-specific cock!)

- “34DD hottie locked in iron shackles and breast whipped” (So glad they took the time to stop for a bra fitting.)

- “Tight hard body fucked upside down made to cum over and over.” (Hel-lo, necrophilia.)

- “Q. Who doesn’t like Double EE breasts? Who doesn’t like a big titted whore, with her boobs bound and pulled to her tip toes by them? A. No one..” (Oh, copywriter, you slay me.)

Having had a read of this, are we still surprised that the wording of the live show’s press-release was a little on the sexist side?

In fairness to them, Kink aren’t as bad as many, many other porn producers. In their descriptions, women are often described as hot, gorgeous, strong or cute – not, I assure you, an industry standard. And yet, there are enough instances of OMG MASSIVE WHORE MILF for you to either rage, cringe, or roll your eyes, depending on your level of cynicism.

Lovers of sex-positive, fair-trade porn still have a long, long wait.

—————————–

* California time, I presume, but don’t quote me on that.

** The correct spelling of Ms Blue’s name has proved difficult to determine.