I Never Called it Rape: Addressing Abuse in BDSM Communities

ariaonthefloor:

cumdoll:

That makes me really angry, because I realized I didn’t feel traumatized because it happened so bloody often that it was just a fact of being a submissive female. WTF, right? I used to see on Alt.com and Bondage.com female submissives talking about predatory behaviour in the BDSM community, and I still see it on CollarMe and Fetlife. I remember being given the stage whisper not to play with this person or that one because they had a history of going too far, something that was often dismissed as “gossip” and kept on the DL to avoid that accusatory label of being overly dramatic. Being in the scene meant learning how to play politics- how to be polite, even good-natured, to people that you kept an eye on.

I speak about abuse on a reasonably regular basis because I think that it’s important for us, as members of a community that can encourage abusers unwittingly, to promote awareness. This article is a great piece of the discussion, and helps us keep in the forefront of our minds that it’s our responsibility to pay attention to ourselves, our relationships, and to listen and pay attention to our friends.

Please. Don’t let what can be a healthy, wonderful, safe, sane, and consensual relationship become abusive. Please, be aware.

Reblogging this because it’s very important. It’s all too easy for us subs to be caught up in the whirlwind of it all that we can be unaware. Protect yourselves. If it doesn’t seem right anymore, it probably isn’t.

This is SO important for people to understand. There is a huge difference between being a sub/slave and being abused but it can be very clouded sometimes.