No doubt many of you will have read Gorgone’s posts and witnessed the ensuing furor about her consent violation and the subsequent poor handling of the situation. Things like this are always unpleasant but she is keen for something positive to come out of it, so has started this initiative which she has asked me to share. The purpose is to raise responsibility and awareness, educate, help, by sharing articles and material about consent, abuse, negotiation, etc. Since this happened, a number of people (mostly women) have finally dared sharing their own stories.
This is what she has written:
Please, feel free to re-post and share this in any group you feel might be appropriate. I count on you to spread the word, I need to take a break from this whole thing and the social media for some days now. I’m out of juice…
The last 24hrs have been tough and exhausting -to say the least…
~ I am extremely touched and grateful for the massive support that was given to me -and every other spoken or unspoken victims of abuse.
~ I am extremely impressed and proud to witness the community responding with a strong wave of promoting and educating awareness and responsibility.
~ I am extremely saddened and worried to witness numerous expressions of rape apology and victim blaming.
~ I am extremely hopeful that with the blowup of these threads and the massive attention it got on social medias (both ‘vanilla’ and Kinky), some concrete benefits and changes will result.
I encourage all of us to ride that wave and use the amazing visibility it has created to promote useful material.
It would be a shame to let the attention and visibility that my Fetlife profile has reached serve only one fight, so I would like to open my profile as a platform to share any writings, researches, educational or thought provoking material, because not only my story deserves attention. Feel free to request anonymity, or not, to name names, or not.
Please feel free to send your stories, articles, videos, photos, anything useful to this email :
share.care.act@gmail.com
I will need and ask for help to read, select and publish the material, so if you wish to be part of the “email” team, please let me know and you will have access to this mailbox.
Share, care, act.
I want to be proud to be part of this community.
At the very least, I hope this will prompt us all to consider our actions more carefully and lead to creating a safer environment on both sides of the rope. The key word is clarity. Both parties need to be very clear about what they expect from a session, whether it involves rope or not, before it starts. The more doubt we can remove, the less likely it is for unintended transgressions to occur, with the inevitable trial by lynch mob, or for it to be used as a stock excuse by abusers. That said, we need workable solutions and not unrealistic criteria that nobody can be expected to meet every time. A good start, whilst by no means exhaustive, is asking “What sort of scene do you want? What hard limits do you have?”. I’m hoping Gorgone’s resource and the various threads on my Fetlife group will come up with some better advice.
Whilst nothing ever gives anyone the right, or even excuse, to take something without consent regardless of how much the desired object is flaunted, be it sex or property, no guidelines or laws will ever prevent it. They might help the law-abiding to set their limit of what society deems acceptable behaviour, but they will never stop a criminal…well, simply because that’s the definition of criminal.
In Utopia, I could leave an expensive camera in full view in my car overnight. I should be able to expect that as my right and it should not be regarded as an invitation to steal it. Although, I suspect even the most vociferous anti rape apologist would agree that it is not sensible behaviour. Until such an Utopian state exists, we must all take precautions and accept that some things increase probability. In an ideal world, this wouldn’t apply but unfortunately it isn’t. Some weak-willed or blatantly criminal individuals will be unable to resist. For that reason, I don’t leave my valuables in my car in full view. This does not mean that we shouldn’t strive for a better situation or that we should ever accept victim blaming as an excuse. All I’m saying is, in the interim, it is probably best not to leave too many opportunities for misinterpretation, especially as so much of what we do in sex and BDSM is down to non-verbal cues. Whilst it would be wonderful if everyone interpreted these perfectly, some people are not good at it or don’t have the emotional maturity. Let’s try to help them by making limits clear and leaving as little room for error as possible. Riggers should be asking themselves whether they have the slightest doubt about consent and, if they would be uncomfortable about their actions being examined by their peers, simply ask.
Change is possible and hopefully we can move closer to it.