BDSM; The practice and the law.

My introduction to BDSM was through stories. It was a gentle, yet erotic initiation.
N.T.Morley’s anthology, MASTER/SLAVE, (available from Amazon) showed me the way. Tempting me, enticing me, luring me along the forbidden, erotic pathways.

There’s nothing like the forbidden, to make me want to explore further -- and so I did, and I devoured the stories. I’m not brave enough to have ventured into the alluring world of BDSM, so I talked to people who know more about it than I do.


So, I thought, in a moment of clarity, that’s what they mean. It’s not just about inflicting and receiving pain and humiliating the submissive. It’s a negotiation, between adults, capable of making their own decisions in a simple and loving way. It’s a two way compliment and commitment from one to another. It’s a relinquishing of power, an exchange of power.


I love you and I trust you. Of course to the uninitiated it’s horrifying -- whoever wants to make love to the sounds of their lover’s cries and sobs. But to those involved, it’s intoxicating.

Jude Mason told me; “I can't speak for anyone but myself. But, in my mind, it's nothing like that at all. The person who gets a thrill from having someone else control him/her is simply enjoying an aspect of themselves not everyone has. A spanking can be the most sensuous act between two people who enjoy it. The feeling/shock of being spanked at the instant of orgasm is amazing. Having someone offer up their bodies for you to play with is such a rush.”







The stories in Morley’s anthology are amazing. M.Christian’s, superb, IN CONTROL -- who is in control? The master or the slave? Kristina Wright; IN THE STACKS -- a little homage to the Marquis de Sade. Midori; I SHOULD NOT WANT THIS -- a slave questions her willing participation in a violent whipping. She concludes; how could I not want this?

Life all fetishes BDSM has a long history; it goes back deep in time. Here’s what Wiki tells us.







The historical origins of BDSM are obscure. During the ninth century BC, ritual flagellations were performed in Artemis Orthia one of the most important religious areas of ancient Sparta, where the Cult of Orthia a pre-Olympic religion, was practiced. Here ritual flagellation called diamastigosis took place on a regular basis. One of the oldest graphical proofs of sadomasochistic activities is found in an Etruscan burial site in Tarquinia. Inside the Tomba della Fustigazione, (Flogging grave), in the latter sixth century b.c., two men are portrayed flagellating a woman with a cane and a hand during an erotic situation. Another reference related to flagellation is to be found in the sixth book of the Satires of the ancient Roman Poet Juvenal (1st–2nd century A.D.), further reference can be found in Petronius’ Satyricon, where a delinquent is whipped for sexual arousal. Anecdotal narratives related to humans who have had themselves voluntary bound, flagellated or whipped as a substitute for sex or as part of foreplay reach back to the third and fourth centuries.






Do you get the feeling that I’m avoiding talking about extreme BDSM? Yes, I am; but I think I have to; talk about it I mean. We have the right to do as we wish to our own bodies; don’t we? We have the right to give consent to someone else to someone else to do things to our own bodies; don’t we? Well, apparently not.



Yet I can visit a tattooist and have tattoos all over my body. I can have my clitoris, my nipples, or any other part of my body pierced. Of course I can.

But in 1990, the infamous Spanner case was brought to our attention.

In December, 1990, in the UK, 16 Gay men were brought to trial and given prison sentences of up to four and a half years for engaging in consensual S&M activity. This followed an investigation, by the police called “Operation Spanner” prompted by the chance finding of video tapes of S&M activities.

During a raid in 1987 the police seized a videotape which showed a number of identifiable men engaging in heavy SM activities including beatings, genital abrasions and lacerations. The police claim that they immediately started a murder investigation because they were convinced that the men were being killed. This investigation is rumoured to have cost £4 million. Dozens of gay men were interviewed. The police learned that none of the men in the video had been murdered, or even suffered injuries which required medical attention. However the police may well have felt that they had to bring some prosecutions to justify their expensive investigation.

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.

If the police discover you have engaged in SM activities which have caused injury, you and your partner could be prosecuted for assault.

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.
S&M is not itself 'illegal'.





It’s not very comforting to know, is it, that if the police investigate you for participating in BDSM, the law is not on your side? Even though you have freely given your consent.