Daily BrewJian Ghomeshi accusations bring questions about what consensual BDSM activity is
There’s ample discussion today about former CBC Radio host Jian Ghomeshi, his departure from the CBC, a statement he released saying that his firing was due to his sexual preferences, and a Toronto Star article that attributes anonymous sources saying what Ghomeshi did was abuse.
As there are currently no reports in to police, or cases before the court (although Ghomeshi filed a lawsuit today against the CBC for $55 million for “breach of confidence and bad faith”), this isn’t the time or place to discuss the veracity of Ghomeshi or the alleged victims’ claims, as many questions about what happened between Ghomeshi and the women remain.
However, Ghomeshi’s explicit discussion of BDSM (referring to bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism in sexual activities) has brought an oft-ignored topic into public discussion today, opening bedroom doors and inviting the Canadian public into a discussion about what constitutes sexual play and what is abuse.
According to Canadian law, there are no rules differentiating consensual violence during sexual activities, and abuse. Brenda Cossman, law professor at the University of Toronto, wrote in The Globe and Mail:
…when it comes to BDSM – or at least its more intense versions – the law doesn’t actually care about consent. The Supreme Court has said that a person cannot consent to assault. While the cases have typically arisen in the context of bar room brawls or hockey violence, other courts have applied the same reasoning to the sexual context. So, if a sexual activity causes bodily harm, a person cannot consent to it.
But that doesn’t stop many Canadians from engaging in BDSM activities. For women and men who do engage in pain-for-pleasure or dominant-submissive role play activities, as the term BDSM broadly encompasses, there are norms established in the BDSM community that help to make it a pleasurable experience for all parties involved. In the Toronto Star story published Sunday night, Ghomeshi isn’t being accused of an interest in violent-but-consensual sexual play; what the unnamed women told the Star was that Ghomeshi engaged in violent acts without first seeking their permission.
Andrea Zanin, a BDSM writer and educator and PhD student in Toronto, took to her blog Sex Geek after the story broke to share her thoughts on why Ghomeshi’s choice of defence was so worrying:
A danger inherent in this kind of media-message success is that the “don’t hate me for being kinky” defence will be used by people who perpetrate non-consensual violence, and that we, as a community, will stand by uncritically – or worse, cry out in support – as victims of violence are once again silenced. I don’t wish to be complicit in someone’s misappropriation of BDSM terminology and codes as a shield for rape and assault.
In an interview with Yahoo Canada News, Zanin said that she – as many in the BDSM community may still do – immediately worried that those outside the community would go on a ‘hate the perverts’ campaign. She shared that she had two concerns in the aftermath of the Ghomeshi statement for the BDSM community.
“One, people who do consensual BDSM will be dragged through the mud, again, and people will perceive what we do as assault,” Zanin said. “And two, BDSM practitioners will have a knee-jerk reaction and will hear ‘don’t hate me because I’m kinky,’ and not look at what’s happening.”
“I had the knee-jerk reaction ‘don’t hate the perverts,’ but I’m also a feminist. I saw people discussing this story from one side or the other, but not both combined.”
Zanin is careful in her blog post to note that she sides neither with Ghomeshi nor the accused. What Zanin is concerned with is for people who are in non-consenting abusive relationships fearing to come forward, because of the backlash against the women who, anonymously, told the Star that they did not agree to the alleged acts, while Ghomeshi says they did.
What differentiates an abusive relationship from a healthy, consensual BDSM one is open and frequent communication about the acts involved.
“Part of it is talking about it,” said Zanin. “I mean a really ongoing conversation, not just before sex. It’s not a one-time conversation.”
One point of contention between Ghomeshi’s account of events on Facebook and the events outlined by the Toronto Star report is the use of a safe word, a term sometimesused in BDSM activities as a way for one partner to communicate to the other that the activity they are engaged in has gone beyond their comfort level. Zanin says safe words aren’t some ‘gold-standard,’ or magic safety net for when things take a turn during BDSM activities.
“Classically speaking, a safe word is if you can’t just use the English language. You only really need it if you can’t speak.
“Having a safe word is not a way to judge if something is being done right.”
With no legal protection for those who engage in BDSM activities and no hard-and-fast rules on how to safely establish a dominant-submissive relationship, it means the outcomes of the Star report and of Ghomeshi’s own admissions are extremely murky. What has come as a lesson from this weekend’s events, however, is the need for clear and open communication when engaging in any form of sexual contact.
“Any activity, whether it’s plain sex or a racy kink, should have an ongoing conversation.”
