loss of potential

*trigger warning for discussion of consent violation, sexual assault, and rape*

Musings.

When I was in a particular metro city18 months ago, I saw a woman doing a demo at a fetish ball. I was entranced by what she was doing, and also a little too intimidated by my newness and her obvious experience to interact much with her.

About a year later when I visited that city again and attended a play party with a friend, I met her again. I was still new but much more confident in my desires, and I think I gave off much more of an air of active exploration instead of tentative curiosity. While I didn't play with this particular woman, it didn't upset me in the least when my friend later reported that this woman seemed to be interested in talking about playing the next time I was in town. Ego boost - this leader of the queer kink scene was interested in playing with me?! Excuse me while I preen a little and let my mind gently wander over some things I would be interested in doing with her....

I've been hearing some rumblings about this person through the friends I have in the scene in her town. Comments that maybe it's for the best that we didn't play the last time I was in town, that rumors are circulating about consent violations? As a leader in the community, someone who runs a play space, a person is both a particular target for rumors (someone is always pissed at leadership) and particularly untouchable (the reaction of most people to blame the victim for coming forward and 'rocking the boat'). Since I'm not intimately in the scene I kind of ignored things. It's true that some people are quite vigilent with their boundaries - while it's still violating consent if someone oversteps those, some can be easy to overstep even when making efforts to avoid doing so. I put it down to a case like my first potential play partner in Nashville - a bit of a missing stair at worst, someone who would be safe to play with in public if I went in knowing what I was walking into. Any consent violation would either be egregious or unlikely on the first play date during that "getting to know you" time, right?

I'm a little ashamed that I brushed things off so casually, particularly after my friend brought some writings to my attention by someone who had her consent and bodily integrity so egregiously violated that it actually made me a little nauseated to read. It wasn't a gentle pushing of boundaries over time that edged into "well, that's really more than I intended" territory. This was someone saying that sex was not something she wanted with this particular romantic and play partner. She was constantly pressured as their relationship went on to have sex, and finally a consensual make out and play session turned into involuntary removal of clothing and penetration, with steps taken to make sure that her "safeword" was difficult or impossible physically and psychologically to say. Even remembering how she wrote about it makes me feel ill, particularly the self-doubt as to what this was. This person was her mentor, the person who had welcomed her to the scene. How could she do something like that?

So all this made me start to think. How do I feel about losing a potential play partner? Someone I admired?

There is a choice here. I could say "well, it wasn't me, the girl could be lying, I could still play with her and have a perfectly decent experience." And that's true, she could be and I could have that. But these kinds of things rarely come out of nowhere. And this is not the only story like this. The details are different, but now I'm seeing more of the rumors, similar situations of being coerced into either saying yes to something or being prevented from saying no.

Is consent violation always a pattern and indicative of a person to be avoided at all costs? Is it situation dependent upon the people and the boundaries in question? Does one consent violation condemn a person to never be played with again?

Any partner that I play with has the potential to cross my boundaries, to violate my consent. Part of that is me finding my boundaries. But no matter how much my inner kinkster wants to play with this particular person (because she's hot/experienced/dominant/formerly respected/etc), I can't help but be grateful to my friend for bringing this to my attention, grateful to the women who bravely spoke up. Because someone who violates consent like this, this egregiously and willfully, is someone who I believe would do (or try to do) the same to me. Maybe it's just a preference for the way I want to play, but I want to play with tops who have my best interest at heart, who care that even when I am asking to be broken, they know that they need to stop before they shatter me psychologically. Tops who care that consent is enthusiastic, who at very least try hard to read the emotional and physical state of their bottoms.

Actually, even if it was something that I ended up enjoying, it's still not ok to have gone there in the first place in the face of a no (hard or soft). That's just teaching me that my consent does not matter, that I should not trust my own knowledge of what I want, and reinforcing that breaking boundaries is ok if it has a good ending (it always has the potential for a good ending, but is significantly more likely to have a bad ending compared to things agreed to in advance).