bdsm is not safe

Hope over at Hopeful Descent has an interesting post up that details most of an email correspondence she’s been having with someone (Becstar) who is skeptical of how BDSM can ever not be a bad thing.  I really enjoyed seeing Hope’s responses as well as Becstar’s questions and comments; it was a long read but very worthwhile.

It did bring something up for me, and that is my disagreement with calling BDSM safe.  Hope writes:

The most important parts of BDSM as a mode of sexuality are consent and safety.  We know that what we are doing can be dangerous, that if we are not careful someone could be seriously emotionally or physically harmed.  Most people who practice BDSM have thought more about sexual negotiation and consent than probably the majority of vanilla people.

and, later

I thought I tried to tell you how I define BDSM in my last email, but maybe I didn’t do the best job. It’s a blanket term that means lots of different things to different people. For me, and most other people who practice it, the most important aspect is the explicit focus on safety, negotiation and consent. Without that, regardless of the particular activity involved, I wouldn’t call it BDSM and I might call it abuse.

I don’t disagree with this exactly, and in fact it may sound like what I’m saying here is an exact echo of what Hope has said.  But I feel like my emphasis is slightly different.

What I want to say to Becstar, who sounds as though she is considering trying some stuff, is, No, look, BDSM is exactly as dangerous as you’d think.

Let’s imagine for a moment that we live in a world where people don’t routinely play sports, and you have a friend who tells you about this thing called “football” that he’s really into.  (This is American football, if that helps the visuals.)  He tells you about how a group of people line up facing another group.  The first group has an oblong leather ball, and they try to get it to one end of a field while the second group tries to stop them by grabbing them, pushing them down, hitting them, and so on.  When the first group succeeds, or after a while if they don’t, they have to give the ball to the second group, and everyone reverses roles.

You might say, “Wow, that sounds kind of dangerous, what with all the hitting and pushing down and stuff.  Don’t people get hurt?”

And your friend might say, “Oh, no, it’s not dangerous at all, we are all about safety.  Safety is our main thing!  We have a lot of rules about how you’re allowed to push and hit, and we wear all kinds of equipment and for really serious players there’s usually medical staff right there at the field, just in case. “

And you say, “Wait – why do you need medical staff and all those rules and equipment if it’s pretty safe?”

And they say, “This is how all the responsible people do it, because we know it could be dangerous otherwise, but if you do it without that stuff, I wouldn’t call it football – that’s just people messing around being stupid.”

And, you know, I see the football-playing friend’s point, but I also think it’s kind of wrong.  It is, at least, not the right point to be making.

People get hurt doing bdsm all the time.  My boyfriend once got a 3rd degree burn on his scrotum (not from me, btw, though I was around and slightly involved; this was before we were dating).  You can strain a muscle, dislocate a shoulder, sprain your wrist, end up with unintentional scars.  You can be shaky for a while because something was traumatic.  (This happened to me recently.)  You can go through a period of melancholy as endorphins come and go.  You can get dehydrated.  You might pass out.  Someone could accidentally take out your eye with an ill-placed whip strike.  You could let someone do something, thinking that you’ll like it, and find out it makes you feel horrible instead.  You could hurt someone, with their consent, and end up feeling rotten about it, because you decide you shouldn’t have.

And not all people who do bdsm are paragons of sanity and responsibility.  People (not me) do bdsm drunk, or stoned.  People do it with uncontrolled emotions.  People sign ridiculous contracts and try to live up to them.  Some people are assholes.  Some people don’t know what they want.  Some people consent when they shouldn’t.  Some people are just not that bright, or not that educated, or not that experienced with whatever equipment they’re using.

And even smart, ethical, well-informed, thoughtful people make mistakes.

The question becomes, is BDSM safe enough for you, as practiced by you, given whatever you get out of it?  Are you taking the steps you need to take to make it safe enough?  Is/are your partner(s) supporting you in that?  Are they sane and responsible?  Are you willing to bear the risks that you or they will make a mistake?

All kinds of things in life are dangerous.  Regular sex.  Mountain climbing.  Racquetball.  Running with scissors.  Snowshoeing.  Surfing.  We do them anyway, because they bring us joy, and it’s not worth living a life where you never do anything because you’re too afraid.  But you should never trust that certain practices simply are safe.  Do your own research.  Use your common sense and self-knowledge.  Decide what is smart and worth it for you.