Domination & Submission: The BDSM Relationship Handbook (52 page)

A devout Buddhist, for example, may be profoundly
uncomfortable with the thought of even
simulating
an activity that, in
reality, would be considered to be harmful to others or might cause them
pain.  Examples
might
include spanking, paddling, bondage, torture,
and a host of other traditional BDSM activities.  The Buddhist practice of
avoiding
performances
could make BDSM scenes,
even as a spectator
,
taboo.  If the Buddhist distaste for being
elevated
above others
applies even to
chairs and beds
, it’s a pretty safe bet that
aspiring
to become a Dominatrix
would probably be
frowned upon
.  Many
people are perfectly willing to ignore or overlook what their
religion
thinks of their BDSM activities, but it certainly becomes a lot harder to do
that when it’s your
relationship partner
who is doing all the
frowning
.

If the only potential religious problems for D/s
couples simply involved religious differences that could arise
within
the relationship, life would be pretty simple.  Unfortunately, life in a
D/s relationship is
never quite
so simple.
  Let’s consider,
for example, what happens in a hypothetically scenario where a D/s relationship
develops into a personality cult with a Lesser God Dominant at the helm and an
assortment of acolyte submissives worshipping at his feet.  In essence, a
private, insular religion has been formed, with its own unique beliefs,
doctrines, and practices.  You or I might view this scenario with some
bemusement or even fascination but, even so, our
first
instinct as
members of this lifestyle is typically to tolerate and respect the informed
consensual choices of others.   But what if you were
not
a
member of the D/s lifestyle?  What if you were,
instead
, an
influential member of the community who was profoundly vanilla and devoutly
religious, and your
eighteen-year-old daughter
just became one of those
acolytes?  It’s hard to see a hypothetical scenario like this one
developing into anything other than a
train wreck
for everyone
concerned.

The point of this story is to illustrate the fact
that, once you adopt an alternative lifestyle or become part of a
non-traditional relationship, you run the very real risk of having
religion
used as a club
against you by people outside the relationship who may, for
whatever reason, believe they have a stake in the outcome.  Those people
are
typically
going to be family members, or concerned friends and
associates.  But there may even be times when your neighbors, your church,
the community at large, or even the heavy-hand of government is arrayed against
you.  Consider the April 2008 raid of an FLDS
polygamist compound
in Eldorado, Texas, where state troopers and Child Protective Services agents
swooped in with
armored vehicles
and placed over 400 children in
“protective custody” on the basis of a
prank telephone call.
 

Think something like that couldn’t ever happen to
you? 
Think again.

Legal Issues

It’s
easy
to have faith in the courts and in
our judicial system, until you actually find yourself suddenly at its
mercy.  When you consider the fifty U.S. states, five major U.S.
territories, the District of Columbia, and the Uniform Code of Military
Justice, there are close to
sixty different sets of laws
governing what
is or isn’t legal to do
in the privacy of your own bedroom. 
As if
that
weren’t bad enough, each legal jurisdiction gets to arbitrarily decide
which laws they want to enforce and/or prosecute in the courts.  That
discretionary latitude is
not
reserved solely for the states themselves;
it is often exercised by cities, counties and townships.  As late as 2012,
twenty-three U.S. states still had laws against
adultery
on the books,
but when was the last time you heard of someone being
arrested
for that
particular crime?  In Massachusetts, Idaho, Michigan, Oklahoma and
Wisconsin,
adultery is a felony
.  In the other eighteen states that
consider it a crime, it is a
misdemeanor.
 

Did you know that, as of 2013, mere
cohabitation
with a person of the opposite sex who is not your spouse is still illegal in
three U.S. states?  Those states would be
Mississippi, Florida and Michigan,
by the way.  This is
despite
the fact that, according to the
Census Bureau’s 2009 American Community Survey, 58% of all women aged 19-44
have, at some point, lived with a man who was not their legal
spouse.   In fact, these arcane laws are still on the books despite
the landmark ruling in
Lawrence vs. Texas (2003),
in which the U.S.
Supreme Court ruled that
laws against cohabitation were
unconstitutional. 
And yet, there they are.

You
probably
think you know what the word
sodomy
means, and if so, you’re probably
wrong
.   U.S. courts have
historically interpreted
sodomy
to mean
“any sexual act deemed to be
unnatural or immoral.” 
Traditionally, the courts have defined that
further to mean
oral sex, anal sex and bestiality;
 but the
implications of the broader definition for someone in the fetish lifestyle are
seriously
scary. 
What it means is if the authorities
don’t like what you’re
doing
, and even if there aren’t any specific
laws
against it,
they
can always charge you with sodomy.  Consent
is not an acceptable
defense.

In fact, the entire notion of
lawful
consent
is riddled with so many traps, pitfalls and legal loopholes, the mere thought
of attempting to build a trial defense based upon it should be enough to strike
fear into the heart of any competent trial attorney.  We like to think
that whatever happens between
two consenting adults
should be no one’s
business but their own, but that’s
not
necessarily how the
law
sees
things. 

Let’s take, for example, the crime generally known
to most people as
battery. 
The basic definition of
battery
is:
the unlawful application of force upon the person of another which
results in bodily injury or offensive touching. 
The first thing we
should take note of here is the glaring lack of any mention of the word
“consent.”
 In
most
states, the law is pretty clear on this. 
Battery
is battery
,
regardless
of whether or not the alleged victim
consented
to
or
enjoyed
the activity.  

Obviously, if the victim is the only available
witness to the alleged battery, and isn’t inclined to cooperate with the
prosecutor’s case, then there really isn’t much of a case for the prosecutor to
work with.  But there
have
been plenty of cases prosecuted in the
courts where an alleged victim has declined to cooperate with the state, yet
the case was prosecuted
based solely on the testimony of police officers,
other witnesses, or medical personnel. 
Many people erroneously
believe that if an alleged victim
“refuses to press charges”
against his
or her
“attacker,”
then that person cannot be charged with
battery.
  It’s
a
myth.
 

While the notion of legal consent
may be
considered
irrelevant
to the crime of
battery
, it can be a
critical factor to prove
other crimes
, and in some types of cases, it is
essentially the
only
relevant factor.
 
Without
consent
,
sex becomes
rape,
heavy petting becomes
sexual battery,
bondage
becomes
unlawful imprisonment or kidnapping
, impact-play becomes
aggravated
battery
or
assault with a deadly weapon
, and even pillow talk turns
into
sexual harassment.

You may be thinking,
“Not a problem.
  I
always
get my partner’s consent before engaging in any sexual or BDSM activity.” 
If that is
so,
then that is a truly commendable strategy
indeed.
 
There’s just one little problem with it.  Could you prove it in a court of
law?
 Could you do it
ten years, or even twenty years from
now? 
Some states have recently acted to extend or
eliminate
entirely
the statute of limitations for the crimes of rape and
sodomy.  In those states, you could
theoretically
be charged with one
of those crimes
at any time while you are still alive.
  The odds of
such a thing happening are, of course,
infinitesimally
small, but it is
a sobering thing to contemplate.

Family Issues

Among the many other things that could possibly go
wrong with a D/s relationship, we shouldn’t neglect the very real possibility
that your
families
may not be entirely thrilled with your involvement in
this lifestyle.  Much of this negativity will be rooted in misconceptions
and false stereotypes, but that doesn’t make the
effects
any less
stressful, and the potential consequences can run the gamut from
comical
to
catastrophic.
 

I always enjoy telling the story of what happened a
few days
after
I presented Jade, my former submissive, with her
beautiful new collar.  She was still riding high on a wave of euphoria
when she called me to tell me those three little words which can have such a
profound impact on the psyche of just about any Dominant:  “I told Mom.”

I’m rarely rendered speechless, but
this
was
one of those times.  I stammered, “You. Told. Your. Mom.
What, exactly,
did you tell her?”

She nonchalantly replied, as if she were discussing
her last load of laundry, “I told her I was
collared
; that I now have a
Master
,
and that my heart, body and soul belong to
You.
 And I told her
that I was deliriously
happy
about it
.”

“I see...” said I, struggling manfully to stay calm,
“and how
,
pray tell,
did she
react
to this news?”

A long pause followed, no doubt fueled by an
internal struggle over how to best phrase her response.  She finally
decided on,
“Not so good.”

“Not so good?”
I asked.  “Please define
not so good.”

“Well...
”
she replied, “She wants your full name and address, and she said she’ll use the
police or private investigators
, if necessary, to track you down and
rescue me from whatever crazy kind of cult you’ve gotten me into.  So,
yeah...
 
Not so good.”
 

I like to think I took the news
calmly
, with
a stoic resolve to weather whatever storm would be coming our way.  Jade,
however, remembers it in a
slightly different
way
.
Today, she
describes it thusly: “You totally freaked out.”
  Whatever
.  
Eventually, her mother
(and I)
calmed down, and life returned to
abnormal.
 
But this amusing little anecdote is illustrative of how
family
can
sometimes become a critical factor in your D/s relationship in unpredictable or
unexpected ways. 

Take for example, what typically happens whenever
you tell someone outside the lifestyle that you are in a committed D/s or BDSM
relationship. 
Almost without fail
, the very first question they
will ask is:
“Do either of you have children?” 
The unspoken
assumption, of course, is a suspicion or belief that you may be
putting your
children at risk
, or raising them in an amoral or immoral
environment. 
Those misconceptions can be relatively easy for you to discount or ignore
until
those busybodies act on them
.  The fact that they can do so
anonymously
in most cases just makes it all the more dangerous.  It is unfortunate
that our legal system grants almost
unlimited powers
to agents of state
child protective services when they have any reason to suspect that children
are being endangered, even when those reasons may be entirely
bogus.

Family-related D/s relationship issues don’t
always
have to be quite so potentially disastrous.  Sometimes, they can be simply
annoying, frustrating or even
amusing
.  I once made the mistake of
telling my eighty-three-year-old father about my D/s lifestyle during a long
and monotonous road trip we took across the states of Texas and
Louisiana.  To this day, I still can’t fathom what might have caused me to
think that it would be a good idea to have that particular conversation with
him, and he swears that it never happened at all.  Trust me, it
did
.

We each have very different tastes in music, and
after hours of driving in silence, I was about ready to
crack. 
So
I gave him some background about the BDSM lifestyle in
general
, talked a
little about the D/s and poly
mindset and philosophy
, and even tried to
put it all in the proper
context
by explaining how the poly D/s
relationship I was in at the time worked.  I
thought
I had done a
pretty good job of it all, until I realized that, in the course of the last
thirty minutes, he’d really just focused on
two little words
.