Understanding Consent in the BDSM Context

Highlights

BDSM involves sexual preferences involving these physical restraints (one or more).

While this may seem a scary sexual adventure, BDSM is a thriving community worldwide.

For a healthy BDSM relationship, consent is key and sacrosanct.

Making a list of things that help you feel safe and things that don’t can help constitute a code of agreement with your partner.

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BDSM – Bondage and Discipline, Dominance and Submission, Sadism and Masochism. For the uninitiated, BDSM involves sexual preferences involving these physical restraints (one or more). While this may seem a scary sexual adventure, the BDSM is a thriving community worldwide. Some however find the whole idea absurd, psychopathological in nature, and borderline abnormal too. But on the contrary, practitioners of BDSM are psychologically healthy individuals and more so because, for a healthy BDSM relationship, consent is key and sacrosanct.

Despite the stigma attached, BDSM is an enjoyable practice for many. It involves role-playing where one person assumes a dominant role (dom) and another person assumes a submissive role (sub). These activities often involve physical restraint, power plays, humiliation, and sometimes buhttps://indianexpress.com/audio/the-sandip-roy-show/the-bdsm-scene-in-india-with-the-kinky-collective/5638826/t not always, pain. While some enjoy a standard role, many others prefer to switch (switches).

The Kinky Collective is a BDSM community in India that has thousands of people. This group seeks to raise awareness about kink in society as well as to strengthen the BDSM community in India. They also conduct workshops on BDSM practices both online and in various cities. Many more communities like this exist and BDSM is a thriving practice in the country. And their reality is quite contrary to what people think or assume of them.

These people are wild, open to experimentation, adventure and are comfortable and more open towards their partners to discuss sexual preferences and intimacies. This shows that it is a more conscious act involving mutual informed consent of the individuals involved. Therefore, consent here becomes an integral part of the act without which there is no going forward.

The difference between abuse and BDSM borders on consent and the boundary of limitations which is protected by a “safe word”. Knowing and respecting that boundary and stopping when told the safe word is what forms the crux of the whole act and makes it pleasurable and enjoyable for those involved. Safe, sane, and consensual are the catchwords here.

Making a list of things that help you make safe and things that don’t can help constitute a code of agreement with your partner of what each feels comfortable with, their boundaries, likes, and dislikes. For example, someone may be okay with punching and hitting but not with slapping. Respecting individual choices here is everything.

Choose Your Adventure

Finding mutual ground and choosing an adventure (if not already having one) which compliments each other is important and this involves discussion and understanding each others’ preferences. For example, enjoying candle wax burn can be a kink for Some. To safely act on the kink, provide pleasure to your partner, and at the same time being sexually aroused by it, forms the crux of BDSM.

Safety Precautions

Hygiene is of utmost importance. If sexual tools are involved, sterilization of the same, using informed contraception, cleaning up later, are some precautions that need to be taken. In the case of bodily fetishes and kinks, any wounds or injuries inflicted must be immediately tended to with antibiotics, necessary bandages, ice fermentation, or whatever is required until they are healed completely.

The Safe Word

A safe word is used to stop sex, mostly in BDSM relationships. This word is prearranged by the individuals involved, calling out which means that all activity should be ceased with immediate effect. Words decided are ambiguous and unrelated to make sure they are not confused with the activity. Once the safe word is called out, everything stops immediately. Nonverbal gestures or actions can also be decided in advance for those with whom safe words don’t work.

Lawful BDSM Practice

Certain types of physical harm are simply illegal and do not come in the norms of safe practice for BDSM in some countries and should be abstained from. Torture and serious body injuries can be lethal. Criteria for distinguishing abuse from BDSM and identifying abuse within BDSM relationships should be outlined because this consent process is what helps to destigmatize consensual BDSM practices.

Consent Violations

Knowing each other’s preferences and boundaries and sometimes also rating it on a scale of 1 to 5 can help in understanding the partner(s) so that nothing new is introduced in the act which may take the other by surprise and may not be in their comfort levels.

Etiquette Surrounding Consent

Being intoxicated on drugs and alcohol may blur decision making and should not be involved in during BDSM. Being conscious and aware at all times helps to enjoy the act better and being in control of the situation.

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Highlights

After COVID-19 vaccination it is not uncommon to have a 1- to 2-cycle irregular period as the endometrium is part of the immune system.

While few reported heavy bleeding during their menstrual cycle, some others reported early onset of periods with painful cramps and some had delayed periods.

People should not be alarmed due to it and treat it as a minor side effect of the vaccine.

All changes reported have been minor or temporary with no damage to fertility, hormone, or reproductive health.

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Two researchers- Kate Clancy, a human reproductive ecologist and associate professor of anthropology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and biological anthropologist Katharine Lee of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have collected more than 140,000 reports from people who say they’ve noticed a change in their periods after vaccination; Lee and Clancy are formally documenting those cases in an open-ended study on women’s health and reproductive systems post-vaccine.

Clancy’s took to social media after her own experience, “My period after dose one was one of the heaviest I remember having ever in my life,” she says. “I did not anticipate it blowing up to the extent that it has. A lot of emails, a lot of Instagram DMs, and a lot of tweets of people who are just baring their souls to us.”

But Dr. Beachgem, a pediatric emergency response doctor explained in a video that an irregular period, after vaccination is normal and is not detrimental to your health or fertility.

“After COVID-19 vaccination it is not uncommon to have a 1- to 2-cycle irregular period. Your endometrium is part of your immune system, so this can definitely happen,” she explains.

Women are more hormonal than men. During ovulation, the immune system receives a sort of a ‘signal’ to prevent infectious agents from disturbing conception. The cells of the uterine linings also contain some immune cells, which could be affected by hormonal changes and create mild, inflammatory reactions. If the ovulation doesn’t happen, the vaccine could end up spelling some changes to the period cycle.

All three US manufacturers of COVID-19 vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson) have denied that they have seen any irregularities in menstruation or fertility. But the early COVID 19 vaccine trials studies never spoke about reproductive health. This is a huge lapse on their part because they have just disregarded women’s health and the bodies of people with ovaries making them unseen in the clinical trials.

The good news though is that most of the irregularities seem to be short-lived. “From what we have seen so far, it appears that the changes to the menstrual cycle seem to be short-lived, just a couple of cycles,” Lee says.

While few reported heavy bleeding during their menstrual cycle, some others reported early onset of periods with painful cramps and some had delayed periods. But many others had different experiences, too with untimely spotting or bleeding (breakthrough bleeding).

“We started hearing a lot about breakthrough bleeding, from people on long-acting reversible contraception, people on gender-affirming hormones, and postmenopausal people who were years and years out from their last period, sometimes decades out,” Lee says.

However, both researchers say that these irregularities should not be taken as an anti-vaccine argument. A vaccine needs to be taken. But for awareness’ sake, people need to know if there will be an adverse effect so that they are informed and know to expect an irregularity and should not be alarmed due to it and treat it as a minor side effect of the vaccine.

Riley says she believes issues such as the effects on menstruation need to be addressed in future clinical trials of drugs and vaccines: “Because when you can’t answer those questions, you’re asking people just to believe.”

It is only to be informed, aware, and better prepared for women to expect slight changes in their menstrual cycle after ovulation but this should not be a reason for avoiding the vaccination as it is a must. And all changes reported have been minor or temporary with no damage to fertility, hormone or reproductive health. However, if symptoms seem to persist for a longer period, it is better to contact your physician.

Source: npr.org , timesofindia.indiatimes.com

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