What’s Wrong With “Rape Play” (?)

I had the pleasure of photographing a beloved friend’s “birthday bandit gang bang.” As the photographer, I was privy to the bandits’ secret planning sessions. Leading up to the event, I tortured my friend with hinting texts: “Oh, you have no idea what you’re in for.”

But he did know. He’d made a list of requests and the bandits planned on lovingly fulfilling them.

The night of the party, the air buzzed with anticipation. The birthday boy was decked out in his finest. Play participants wore designating color coded ribbons and abstained from drinking. I fiddled with my camera, adjusting my settings for the low Tungsten light, nervously chatting up guests I’d only just met.

We all knew what was going to happen.

But my stomach still lurched when the bandits burst through the doors, their faces obscured with black makeup and masks, their voices loud and brazen and ringing throughout the room. The party was over.

They stalked toward the birthday boy, laughing at him as he backed into a corner, his voice pitching as he cried, “No, no, no!” My heart fluttered and I felt as if a wave had crashed down on me, turning my world with vertigo. They tore his clothes away, exposing his body, and descended upon him like coyotes over carrion, cackling and howling and sneering.

I paused behind the lens, my hair prickling as again he cried out, “No! Stop!” Someone brandished a strap on.

But I crept closer. I saw the look on his face -- the closed eyes, raised chin … the corners of his mouth turned up in a smile as he parted his lips to moan low and heavy. My panic became envy. I snapped a photo -- after all, he’d personally asked me to document this, and those weren’t the sacred safewords.

Inspired by my friend, I asked for my own birthday play party. My primary play partner planned it all for me and the first draft of the invites welcomed guests to the “rape and torture of my princess.” She didn’t mean it that way, but it made me sick to my stomach.

“It’s consensual non-consent,” I corrected her. She changed the wording immediately. I had a fantastic birthday party because even in its depths of sadism, I knew I was ultimately in control and among friends I could trust.

“Rape play” and “rape fantasy” do tremendous disservice to the gravity of rape as a crime, its survivors, and the foundation of “safe, sane, and consensual” BDSM is built on.

By its own definition, “rape play” is impossible. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, rape is, “unlawful sexual activity and usually sexual intercourse carried out forcibly or under threat of injury against the will usually of a female or with a person who is beneath a certain age or incapable of valid consent.” This directly contradicts the tenets of BDSM, which are two-thirds dependent on not only the practice of consent, but an implicit acknowledgment of all aspects of consent beyond saying, “Yes” or “No.” “Sane” speaks to engaging in BDSM free of a state of mind that might blur boundaries. Most play parties do not serve alcohol.

BDSM, like any culture or community, is not immune to problems, but an appreciated aspect of it is the process of negotiation and the sacredness that lies within the safeword. Learning how to establish and communicate the boundaries of my kink and comfort has improved not only my sex life, but the rest of my life. At their best, BDSM relationships revolve around candid communication and trust, where even a top will pull back if she senses her bottom is going too far (even if that bottom has performed a similar scene before, the top realizes that consent is fluid and fluctuating). At its worst, BDSM play at least involves a quick agreement on safewords, the utterance of which ceases all activity with no further questions, pressure, or shame.

This is not rape. If “play” is defined as a BDSM activity between two consenting adults, then “rape play” -- as stated prior -- is inherently impossible. If one is playing, then one is, in theory, consenting, and, therefore, in direct opposition to rape.

My biggest conflict with the term “rape play,” however, is its minimization of the crime of rape and the people it affects, making BDSM a contributor to a larger and deeply harmful rape culture.

I’ve been raped. No matter how unconventional the activities between my play partners and I may appear, I am engaging with total free will, and I am ultimately always in control. In many ways, BDSM for me serves as an avenue of cathartic therapy, allowing me to explore my sexuality with people who explicitly respect my boundaries more than the man who raped me ever did.

We needn’t look too far beyond recent headlines to see how rape culture weaves its way into how we view the world. All we need to do is turn on the television or open a magazine. When celebrity gossip sites dissect women’s bodies with all the entitlement of a customer ordering dinner, we are setting up a world in which women are merely objects. When we ask what the victim was wearing or what she was doing or how many drinks she had or where she was and whom she was with, we are establishing a culture in which rape is the fate of all women. When mainstream news laments the disrupted “promising futures” of rapists, we are establishing a culture in which rapists garner more sympathy than their victims. When mothers teach their daughters not to trust men because fathers will not teach their sons not to rape, we are establishing a culture in which women are expected to bear the onus of the crimes committed against them.

When the word “rape” can be coupled with the word “play,” we are living in an established rape culture. Rape is not a game. It is an epidemic that plagues our society. It is a harrowing statistic. It is a crime that often goes unreported and unpunished. Defense of the term “rape play” begins to echo the ignorance of conservative lawmakers who would deem only some rape “legitimate,” and only under certain circumstances, robbing victims of any agency over their own bodies (while entirely dismissing the perpetrators).

I don’t think it’s the responsibility of those of us in BDSM culture to act as public relations for our kink. We don’t owe it to anyone to explain why we are or are not into certain play and fetishes. What happens between two (or three or four ... or ten) consenting adults is no one’s business (unless you’re an exhibitionist). However, as someone into BDSM who bristles at comparisons of Fifty Shades of Grey with the loving and dynamic exchange of trust between myself and my play partners, I do not appreciate even the slightest opportunity for an outsider to negatively judge me and what I do.

Call it what you like -- it’s not my place to tell you what to do (I do not identify as a Domme at all). Just know that “rape” is a powerful word, and if there is anything we in BDSM know it’s that power demands to be wielded with care, understanding, respect, and consent.