The Legalities Of It All
As a person within the BDSM lifestyle you need to be fully aware of the laws for your area, on the local, and national levels. What you think as fun, and a fulfilling part of your life could influence your job standing, keeping your children in a custody battle, and place you in prison.
BE AWARE OF YOUR LAWS!!!! I cannot express that enough. Remember ignorance is not an excuse in a court room. Also, I or the Mods of this thread are not lawyers. I am interpreting the laws as I have been shown. Please, don't use me or this thread for legal advice.
Slavery, Legally Speaking
Slavery, the treating of non-consenting human beings as chattel and property, is in fact illegal. Selling and buying non-consenting human beings is also illegal. Also, I am not a lawyer, I am interpreting the laws as I have been shown. Please, don't use me or this thread for legal advice.
What makes "our" form of slavery any different? One, single, word. Consent. It may be two syllables and only 7 letters long, but in reality this is the word the entire BDSM world is built from. "Our" slavery is entirely self imposed. It is the slave's choice, (via consent) to hand over their lives to their Masters. "While physically and legally the slave can leave at any time, mentally and emotionally the slaves consider themselves owned and unable to leave unless the Master terminates the contract. The contract is psychological, not legal or physical. The slaves are, ironically, the ones that enforce their own slavery, which is why this does not fit the classical definitions of slavery".
Error-dot-tar and Recursive Paradox
But, doesn't that mean slaves are stuck in the their own mental contract?!
"Actually no. The very way the contract works conceptually allows ways for the slave to leave if the slave wishes to leave. It’s just not psychologically viewed that way by the slaves. The majority of slaves feel that when a Master abuses them or breaks their trust (any form of betrayal) that Master has now implied that the contract was broken. It doesn’t matter if the Master actually wants the slave to leave or to break the contract. These actions are considered implication of a broken contract by the slave’s mindset. And of course, once the contract is broken? The slave is entirely free from the Master, as all the Master’s authority is null and void from that point."
Error-dot-tar and Recursive Paradox
Age of Majority: What It Is and Why It Is Important
Consent is key to any BDSM relationship. Without consent, the relationship can easily turn abusive, and more importantly illegal. None of those are the point of BDSM, which is in fact to be fulfilled physically and mentally.
To legally consent to BDSM activities, one needs to be of or over the AGE OF MAJORITY for your local area. This is very different than the AGE OF CONSENT.
“Age of majority is the legal age established under state law at which an individual is no longer a minor and, as a young adult, has the right and responsibility to make certain legal choices that adults make.”
Source
This means when you reach the age of majority, you are able to have new rights (such as voting) and certain responsibilities (such as going to jury duty). This is what makes you legally an adult. I am using the term “legally” because the eyes of the law see a whole lot differently than your own.
The age of consent is “The age at which a person may marry without parental approval. The age at which a female is legally capable of agreeing to sexual intercourse, so that a male who engages in sex with her cannot be prosecuted for statutory rape. A person below the age of consent is sometimes called an infant or minor."
Source
This means if you are of or over the age of consent you can legally consent to sex, and to marriage. HOWEVER, you cannot consent to bodily injury which takes place in BDSM.
Some terms you need to know:
Informed consent is consent given with full knowledge of what the activity is to pertain of and with full acceptance of that knowledge. An example of informed consent is a contract written and signed by all parties involved.
If at least one of the people involved in the activity does not know the full detail of how that activity will take place, the risks involved, and what it means for each individual in question, it is not informed consent. Error-dot-tar and Recursive Paradox
Legal consent is based on your area's laws regarding consent. This includes things like the age of consent, age of majority, and past rulings regarding the ability to give consent while under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
If the laws in your area does not permit the practice of BDSM activities due to reasons listed above or any others not mentioned, it is not legal consent.
Error-dot-tar and Recursive Paradox
How does this tie into BDSM? If you are under the age of majority you are legally unable to consent to any injury via not being able (legally speaking) to give informed consent. Most kinky activities like buying/veiwing porn or toys are also illegal to you if you are under the age of majority.. If you are hypothetically under the age of majority and participate in something kinky, like a flogging, it is possible your partner could be charged with assault, EVEN IF YOU CONSENTED, because legally speaking, you are unable (too young) to give informed consent to anything yourself. This the is law. Please, obey it! We do not want you in trouble!
England, Oh England! BDSM in the UK!
Ah, the UK. "Across the Pond" for me. The BDSM lifestyle permeates every country, but in the UK there are some law variances.
I advise anyone in the BDSM Lifestyle to be VERY familiar with your local state, province, and country laws about obscenity, consent, and BDSM in general.
Operation Spanner:
In December 1990 in the UK, 16 gay men were given prison sentences of up to four and a half years or fined for engaging in consensual SM activity. This followed a police investigation called Operation Spanner prompted by the chance finding of a videotape of SM activities.
The convictions have now been upheld by both the Court of Appeal and the Law Lords in the UK and the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
Despite what you may have read in the newspapers, for the most part, the men were convicted of the standard offence of assault occasioning actual bodily harm. Their defence, that they had all consented to the activities, was denied.
SM is not itself 'illegal'.
However, if the police discover you have engaged in SM activities which have caused injury, you and your partner could be prosecuted for assault.
The Spanner Trust - UK KINKSTERS PLEASE READ
“Extreme” Images:
"From 26th January 2009 it has been illegal for anyone in England and Wales to possess an “extreme” image, even if the activity itself is legal."
What does this mean? You cannot look at BDSM or possess BDSM imagery that includes but I assume is not limitied to:
"10. An extreme act is one which threatens a person’s life, which results or is likely to result in serious injury to a person’s a**s, breasts or genitals, which involves sexual interference with a human corpse, or which involves a person performing intercourse or oral sex with an animal. Only these specific acts will be caught, and only in conjunction with the other two elements of the offense.
11. Life-threatening is not defined in the Act. It will therefore take its ordinary English meaning and will be a question of fact for the magistrate or jury. It could include depictions of hanging, suffocation, or sexual assault involving a threat with a weapon.
12. Serious injury is not defined in the Act. It will be a question of fact for the magistrate or jury. The intention is that “serious injury” should be given its ordinary English meaning. The reference to “serious injury” was not intended to expressly link into the case law with respect to “grievous bodily harm” under Sections 8 and 20 of the Offences Against the Person Act 86 . Serious injury could include the insertion of sharp objects or the mutilation of breasts or genitals.
13. As well as being a specified act, an extreme act must be explicit and realistic. Both those terms take their ordinary dictionary definition.
14. A further requirement in respect of an extreme act is that a reasonable person looking at the image would think that the people and animals portrayed were real. The practical effect of that requirement is that only photographs and films, and images which are indistinguishable from photographs and films, will be caught by the offence.”
