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To Buy or Not to Buy? Vulnerability and the Criminalisation of Commercial BDSM

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Abstract

This paper examines the interaction of law and policy-making on prostitution, with that of BDSM (bondage and discipline, sadism and masochism). Recent policy and legal shifts in the UK mark out prostitutes as vulnerable and in need of ‘rescue’. BDSM that amounts to actual bodily harm is unlawful in the UK, and calls to decriminalise it are often met with fears that participants will be left vulnerable to abuse. Where women sell BDSM sex, even more complex questions of choice, exploitation, vulnerability, power and agency might be thought to arise. Does the combination of activities take two singular behaviours into the realm of compound harm? Are those who sell BDSM doubly vulnerable in a way that would justify criminal intervention? This paper argues that in imposing categories of vulnerability, the state engages in the heteronormative construction of risky sexual subjects who must be rehabilitated, responsiblised or punished. Through an examination of existing empirical studies on BDSM, the paper offers a feminist critique of the potential criminalisation of commercial BDSM and calls for more research on the lived experiences of those who buy and sell BDSM.

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Notes

  1. Jacqui Smith, during the second reading of the Policing and Crime Bill, Hansard House of Commons Debates, 19 January 2009, column 524, regarding provisions on prostitution. Available at http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/cm090119/debtext/90119-0010.htm, column 524, last accessed September 2012.

  2. I have used the term ‘prostitution’ here to reflect the terminology of the criminal law. However, I also refer to ‘sex work’ when this term is used in the literature. My own normative position—that those who sell sex are more appropriately referred to as sex workers—should be apparent herein.

  3. This is not to imply that the notion vulnerability is the sole driver of current law and policy making. Other discourses, such as disgust, have also been shown to be relevant to the ways in which recent criminal laws in this area have developed. See for example Johnson (2010).

  4. See also HoC Libary Research Paper 09/04, 2009, pp. 48–52; and HoC debate on the Second Reading of the Policing and Crime Bill, 19 January 2009, available at: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/cm090119/debtext/90119-0010.htm, last accessed September 2012.

  5. R v Brown [1994] 1 AC 212.

  6. Paragraph 803 of the explanatory notes to the Bill’s proposed offence, which now appears as Section 63 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008.

  7. For the purposes of this paper I assume that BDSM encounters are primarily erotic/sexual rather than criminal assaults. While some BDSM activity does not involve sexual intercourse or other ‘overt’ sexual acts (or indeed any harmful or injurious activity), participants tend to refer to BDSM practices as either sexual and/or erotic. For simplicity, in this paper I will refer to ‘BDSM sex’ to cover all forms of BDSM activity that take place in a sexual or erotic context.

  8. See for example the response of ‘Cee-anonymous’ to Greta Christina’s invitation to sex workers to tell their stories on her blog: http://freethoughtblogs.com/greta/2012/04/23/sex-workers-an-invitation-to-tell-your-stories/. See also http://jezebel.com/373392/prostitutes-are-the-new-therapists, last accessed September 2012; Weitzer (2012); Jeffrey and MacDonald (2006); For critique of this position and its ‘normalisation’ of sex work see Jeffreys (1997).

  9. In 2008 Max Mosley, the president of the International Automobile Federation (which runs Formula One car racing) successfully sued the British tabloid the News of the World for breach of privacy when they reported on his SM sexual ‘orgies’ that were alleged to have Nazi overtones. Mr Justice Eady held that Mosley was entitled to privacy, and that there was no evidence of Nazi behaviour. Mosley received ‘record’ privacy damages of £60,000. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7523034.stm, last accessed September 2012. For critique of the public/private divide as it relates to sexuality and sexual citizenship see Beckmann (2001), Lacey (1998) and Stychin (1995).

  10. (1995 Crim LR 570).

  11. I accept entirely, of course that the apparent absence of criminal prosecutions for commercial BDSM may also be explained by the fact that most commercial BDSM seems to happen indoors, and most criminalisation of sex work generally is targeted at street-based sex work (Sanders and Campbell 2007).

  12. I would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for prompting me to be clearer on this point.

  13. See for example the short article by Cross available at http://crossculturebdsm.com/educational-offerings/handouts-and-resources/ssc-vs-rack/, last accessed September 2012.

  14. Butler acknowledges that: “there is no guarantee that exposing the naturalized status of heterosexuality will lead to its subversion” (1993, 231).

  15. Available at: http://royalcaute.blogspot.com/2008/03/why-poem-by-bob-flanagan.html, last accessed September 2012. See also Reynolds (2007, 43–44).

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Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank: Sharron FitzGerald and Vanessa Munro for their expert editorial advice and assistance, as well as their patience and encouragement, without which this article would not have come into being; and the anonymous reviewers and editors at FLS for their comments. Thanks also to NWD, for all our conversations, and just because.

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    Sharon Cowan

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Correspondence to Sharon Cowan.

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Cowan, S. To Buy or Not to Buy? Vulnerability and the Criminalisation of Commercial BDSM. Fem Leg Stud 20, 263–279 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10691-012-9209-6

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