BDSM vs. IPV: Understanding Consent, Safety & Abuse

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is nonconsensual abuse between or among significant others, and especially romantic parnters. The Centers for Disease Control identifies intimate partner violence as a significant public health issue that occurs across all ages, races, ethnicities, sexual orientations, genders, regions, and social classes. Indeed it is a global problem.

IPV can include physical and/or sexual violence, stalking, and/or psychological aggression. Its most common expressions are situational couple violence and intimate partner terrorism. Situational violence tends to happen when stress reaches uncomfortably high levels and is often accompanied by mood alteration. For example, people who are completely stressed out may get drunk or high and attack each other. There is generally no plan behind the attack, and the violence might be one against another or mutual. Researchers know about situational couple violence primarily from family studies that ask about interactions. In contrast, intimate partner terrorism is generally calculated, patterned, and far more intentional. Intimate partner terrorists control every aspect of their partners through violence and fear by isolating them from their friends and family, prohibiting their financial independence, and threatening to harm the beings closest to them (children, pets, parents, and friends). Researchers know about intimate partner terrorism from people (almost all women) who flee to seek shelter in removed facilities.

BDSM, on the other hand, is a series of interactions that revolve around power exchange, role play, and intense sensations. An acronym I have explained in other posts on this blog, BDSM stands for Bondage and Discipline (B/D), Dominance and submission (D/s), and Sadism and Masochism (S/M). Some practitioners call it kinky sex, an umbrella category that covers the adventurous sexual interactions that involve a wide range of activities such as tying people up, spanking/whipping/flogging them, bossing people around, submitting to being told what to do, pretending to be other people or beings, and subjecting each other or submitting to intense physical and emotional sensations.

Both BDSM and IPV might involve some of the same interactions, such as slapping, yelling, humiliation, crying, and expressions of pain. There are, however, significant differences that strongly distinguish the two that happen before, during, and after the interactions.

Before

The intent behind the interactions establishes the tenor of the activities before things start. In IPV, the intent is either to release tension (with situational couple violence) or control the partner through violence and manipulation (as with intimate partner terrorism). In BDSM, the intent is to please, titillate, and/or arouse – in other words, play.

Even more important than intent is the negotiation that happens before the interactions, which establishes consent or the lack thereof. Ideally, kinky and BDSM interactions involve what the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom calls Explicit and Prior Permission. That means that people who engage in kinky sex (should) always negotiate exactly what will and will not happen during their play sessions, who is allowed to do what, and how to stop it if someone is not having a good time. IPV, on the other hand, is not negotiated and is thus not consensual. Rather, it is usually either a chaotic interaction that happens without any prior discussion, or a planned manipulation where one person violently wrests control from the other, who does not willingly grant it.

During

BDSM and IPV also differ markedly from each other while the interactions are happening. In IPV, the victim has not consented to the violent attacks and thus can not modify or stop them. People involved in kinky sex, however, should have (ideally) established a safe word prior to engaging in play that they can use to stop the interactions if they are not enjoying it. This consensual shared control, in combination with the intent to pleasure, distinguishes kinky sex/BDSM from IPV that is not consensual and intended to harm or control.

Because kinky sex is intended for pleasure and fun, what happens during the interaction is quite different from what happens during intimate partner violence – even if they look the same on the surface. The top or dominant is (or at least should be) finely attuned to the submissive or bottom’s experience during a kinky sex scene, making sure that the action stays within the boundaries set before the scene got started. Even if the submissive or bottom does not deploy the safe-word to stop the scene, a top or dominant might still slow down, check in, and modify their actions if they sense that their submissive is in non-pleasurable discomfort. In sharp contrast, the aggressor in intimate partner violence is not concerned with their partner’s well-being or enjoyment, and in fact is generally focused on their own experience of releasing frustration and/or controlling someone with less power. Usually abusers are not bothered with mitigating how their actions are impacting their victims.

After

Folks who are adept at kinky sex often negotiate aftercare, which is a way to reconnect and check in with each other once they have finished playing. Aftercare usually involves the partners coming out of whatever roles they were playing during the scene, possibly putting clothes on, perhaps having a drink or a snack, and most importantly talking about how the scene went. Enjoying the afterglow together provides an opportunity to reconnect on a personal level as well as discuss the positives and negatives of their shared interactions to determine what each liked and what (if anything) they did not like or would prefer to change if they have another scene in the future.

IPV, in contrast, usually ends with either recriminations that place the blame for the violence on the victim, or apologies from the aggressor with assertions that they will not abuse their victim again. Because the interaction was never consensual in the first place, there is no review of how things went and how the person on the receiving end feels about it or might want to change it in the future.

Conclusion

The most important distinction between kinky sex/BDSM and IPV is consent, and everything else flows from that framing concept. Even if the actions appear the same on the surface, the intent to pleasure and the ability of the players to stop undesired interactions fundamentally determine BDSM/kinky sex to be quite different from intimate partner violence with its intent to harm and non-consensually control.

As usual, things with humans are complicated and sometimes what begins as consensual kinky sex can sometimes become intimate partner violence. This happens if one partner will not allow the other to renegotiate, refuses to respect the identified boundaries, ignores a safeword, and/or coerces their partner into doing something they don’t really want to do. Ideally there is a stark contrast between IPV and BDSM, but sometimes BDSM can become abusive when kinky sex goes wrong. If it crosses that line, BDSM is no longer focused on the pleasure for the bottom or submissive and becomes abusive instead.