If it’s not a yes, it’s a no. That seems to be the new (and right) approach to consent: one flooding schools, editorials, and activist movements around the country. And, yes, it’s true, talking openly about sex and consent is a step in the right direction. Certainly topics like these were never even mentioned in public or private discourse five to ten years ago, but matters of intimacy and consent often arise out of a worst-case-scenario; the unfortunate real scenarios that have comprised most women’s sexual experiences throughout their lives. Of course, movements including #MeToo and Time’s Up have raised this important issue. But, consent is not best-suited or exclusively positioned for conversations surrounding rape and sexual assault. In fact, it seems that it is least time-effective to start considering consent after people have been hurt, both mentally and physically. 

 So what about consent before it all goes wrong? What if we understood, from a young age, what it means to set appropriate boundaries and communicate with partners before and after intimate encounters? (And, this is just a thought, but it seems like these kind of skills wouldn’t hurt non-sexual interpersonal relationships either!)

In the BDSM community, this is not a far-off reality: it’s the norm. Don’t let 50 Shades fool you, BDSM isn’t what you may think. A recent academic report from The Journal of Sex Research found that paricipating in a culture of consent, like the BDSM community, could be associated with less rape-supprotive beliefs. Upon first glance, this may seem surprising. That is most likely a product of our assumptions about just what BDSM means, rather than what that community actually entails. While most people who engage in “normal”, or vanilla, sex acts may have a preconceived notion of BDSM sex as wild, violent, or hurtful, the community is actually based upon principles that are just the opposite. In BDSM, or Bondage and Discipline (B&D),  Dominance and Submission (D&S), and Sadism and Masochism (S&M), consent comes first. 

BDSM participants rely upon clear, predetermined agreements of boundaries and expectations of communication and acts following the act or “scene” being performed. BDSM also provides a space for participants to subvert traditional gender norms, choosing to act as the dominant or submissive partner when the traditional gender norm (especially in sex) may assign them the opposite. Within the BDSM community there is a universal expectation of “aftercare” : what someone will need after performing a sex act. For example, a partner might signal that they prefer to be contacted within two days of the encounter, while others might prefer to be left alone and require no further conversation. The principle of the matter is not whether there is more value to one preference or the other, but rather the central idea that someone can openly voice what they need to feel respected and cared for after the act. How many average, vanilla sex encounters end with one or both parties wondering if it’s even appropriate to reach out the next day? (With one-night stands, at least, I would bet somewhere between 80-100%) So why can’t we take some of these guiding principles, not necessarily to carry out BDSM acts ourselves, but just to apply to our own sexual lives and intimate relationships at large? The ethical practices of BDSM can provide a jumping-off point for us all, both in our sex-lives and beyond.

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Feature Image via Vanessa Granda