What is the difference between BDSM and abuse?
So the short answer is informed consent.
When we break it down, abuse is about a pattern of control.
Abuse is about a way of establishing control, creating isolation so that you can reinforce that control.
Abuse can use a lot of different tools.
Abuse can use language.
It can use money.
It can use physical violence.
It can use threats.
It can use threats to pets or children.
There are a lot of ways that abuse can manifest.
But at its core, it is about control.
It is about entitlement.
It is about exercising your will over somebody else despite what they want or need.
BDSM is about play.
Dan Savage has often called BDSM cops and robbers for grown-ups with your pants off.
BDSM is about taking things that in the day-to-day world are taboo, are forbidden, are dangerous, are wrong, and creating a safer space with which to interact with them so that we can explore those things, face them, challenge them, work through them, play with them in new ways.
The reason I say that the biggest difference between BDSM and abuse is informed consent is because like I said, abuse can take a lot of different forms.
It can take the form of financial control, so determining whether somebody gets access to money, how much money they get access to, how much money they get to have in their account.
In an abuse situation, that is about a partner exercising control by controlling the access to money and finances of their partner.
And it is about maintaining that control for the purpose of control, for the purpose of power, whether the partner wants it or not.
In abuse, generally it’s abuse because the partner is not into it, does not enjoy it.
They may be tolerating it.
They may have excuses for it.
They may have reasons that they stay.
But it is not something that they have consented to.
They did not get an opportunity to say, “Hey, here are the pros and cons. Here is what I’m thinking. If you want to stop at any time, let me know.”
In BDSM, you might have folks like findoms, financial dominance, who have submissives who agree to give them a certain amount of control over their finances.
The difference being, this is a negotiated relationship where everybody sits down and says, “Hey, here’s what this will look like. Here’s what I get out of it. Here is what I don’t like.”
And at any point, the person, submissive, who has handed over control, can choose to take that control back.
They can choose to say, “I no longer want you to have access to these things.”
And unless the dominant is being abusive, the dominant will say, “Absolutely. Thank you so much for telling me. We will stop doing this thing that does not work for you.”
The thing about consent is that for it to be consent, it must be informed, it must be revocable at any time, it must be freely given, it must be explicit.
So the FRIES model of consent, which you can look up, is a great one for thinking about these different components.
I think I might have forgotten one of them, but it’s FRIES like French fries.
And when we think about an abusive situation, their consent to that financial control is generally not freely given and it’s certainly not revocable.
It’s usually not explicit.
It is not informed.
So there is no – and there is no safe way to be able to stop it.
So the same exact situation of somebody controlling someone else’s access to money or which money they get access to or what their money is used for could be BDSM, could be abuse.
The big difference is, did they consent?
Did they negotiate?
Is it clear how to stop it?
Is the person who has that power who has been handed that power handling it with care?
Do they give it back when it’s asked for?
There are people in the BDSM scene who abuse their partners, who have done abusive things.
There are people who are abusive who also are involved in BDSM or do BDSM activities.
So there is no – there is this way a lot of times that people will talk about the BDSM scene as like, “Well, because we negotiate, it’s not abuse.”
And like yes, if it is clearly negotiated and freely consented with informed consent then yes, it is not abuse.
That does not mean that there cannot be abuse under a BDSM context.
What it means is that BDSM in and of itself is not abuse.
But because the BDSM scene is a scene full of people, there is abuse that happens within it because anywhere there are people, there is abuse that happens.
There are a lot of ways that many people are dreaming of futures that are free of coercion and control, that are free of abusive control, that are about reimagining systems of how we handle each other when we do things that are harmful and how we help to reduce harm at its roots rather than just addressing the symptoms of it or the individuals who are manifesting the symptoms of this abusive system that we all live under because look, the research shows Millennials, my generation, are the first generation to not get more conservative as they age because we see how abusive this whole freaking system is.
All of it is just so horrifically abusive in terms of the way that we are treated by our governments, by our employers, by health insurers. It’s endless the abuse that is present in human systems right now.
And so, because BDSM has humans in it, there are people who do abuse in BDSM. And BDSM in and of itself is not abuse.
People might get hit.
That doesn’t mean that it’s abuse.
Right?
In a boxing match, people get hit.
Is that abuse?
No, because there is no system of control, right?
The people in a boxing match aren’t hitting each other as a way to gain some kind of ongoing control over each other.
They aren’t trying to isolate the person from others.
They aren’t trying to regain an ongoing day-to-day kind of control over the person they are boxing.
They are going in to do a sport that they enjoy.
In BDSM, we are going in to have some fun with our neurochemicals, our neurotransmitters.
We are just playing with our brains and our nervous systems and our muscles.
And that’s not abuse.
Pain may happen.
People may get bruises.
People may get cuts.
People may be into scars.
They may be into a lot of different things.
But just because there is an impact on the physical body does not mean that it is abuse, because of these things that they have freely chosen, that they have consented, that they have created a safe container for.
So again, big difference between BDSM and abuse is informed consent.
People are able to negotiate for what they do and don’t want.
They get to set limits.
Those limits are respected.
They get to use a safe word or otherwise end a scene or interaction at any time if it stops working for them.
They get to walk away and leave and not be treated as though that is a problem or have someone try to re-exert their control over them.
When it is a system of control, when it is a systemic pattern, i.e., a pervasive pattern of controlling the other person and exerting control over them in an ongoing way, that is abuse.
Especially for those folks who aren’t in the BDSM scene, who don’t know people in like long-term ongoing master/slave relationships, who haven’t seen a hardcore impact scene, I get why it is confusing.
If someone says like, “I am this person’s slave. They get to decide what I wear. They get to decide what I eat.”
That sounds like abuse.
That sounds awful.
And for the person agreeing to be a slave, often, that is liberating and freeing.
They don’t have to make those choices.
Somebody else makes it for them.
A lot of people who choose higher control versions of BDSM are people who really enjoy being able to relinquish control in some ways, who really enjoy having somebody else set parameters for them with the knowledge that they can renegotiate.
So again, informed consent is the biggest difference between BDSM and abuse.
Do you understand what the pros and cons are?
Do you negotiate it clearly?
Are you able to revoke your consent at any time?
When you want a change or are revoking your consent, does the person you are talking to respect that and honor that and treat that like a valid concern and a valid choice?
That’s the big difference.
Just because people play with painful things whether that’s psychological or physical or spiritual, that doesn’t mean that it is abuse.
Look, if you have ever watched a video, a TV show, a movie, or whatever, and it hurt you deeply but like in a beautiful way and then you share it with a friend, that’s the same kind of thing that abuse is or that BDSM is.
It’s about engaging with our tough feelings in a way that is shared and communal and safe or safer.
Nothing is ever a hundred safer, but safer where we get an informed choice, where we get to negotiate things.
We get to have a say even as we experience things that are hard or challenging or painful.
