This article is a response to BDSM not welcome at Rad Sex + Consent Week, published recently on Archer.

I was to be the facilitator of the BDSM101 workshop which was cancelled at Monash Rad Sex + Consent Week (RSC) this year.

I’ve run BDSM101 at Melbourne Uni RSC for the last two years, and found no conflict with students who’ve had a variety of perspectives on and experiences with BDSM and kink. I was quite shocked to hear about how this played out at Monash.

I also feel regret for those students whose education and perhaps identities as kinky, queer, or simply curious people were effectively shut down by the course of events that played out here.  This is the sort of situation in which someone will always end up being silenced.

I understand and have respect for the position the Women’s Department rep and RSC organiser was placed in by her peers, and while I don’t believe that the decision she made was optimal for offering ‘the sex ed you didn’t get in high school’, I do think that it took to heart people’s personal experiences of BDSM-related trauma, which is also an important aspect of creating a safer space.  She takes her role seriously and was put under a lot of pressure at the last minute, and I don’t condemn the decision she made.

It is my understanding that the students in opposition to BDSM intended to picket the workshop, which would have created an environment in which students who were curious about or interested in kink would be outed and publicly shamed for crossing the picket line.  While I find the idea of picketing something like this to be politically ineffective, and feel that the workshop was actually a very appropriate space to discuss the very concerns raised by some of the students, I also care about constructing a safe container for education to happen, and that would have been compromised had the workshop been picketed.

Radical feminism is a social determinist philosophy. It deals in binaries. For those of us who fall on so many other parts of social and cultural spectra, it is a feminism of erasure and denial. Whilst I certainly encourage debate around its tenets, I have engaged in enough of these in my experience as a queer, sexworking, kinky, sex-positive feminist to know that they will always end in agency-denial.  Instead of engaging any further with that discussion, I’m going to offer a few key points about BDSM that I intended to include in the workshop, which should answer some of the concerns raised.

Education in and communication about BDSM is particularly essential right now, in light of its current popular-cultural mainstreaming, which gives more people access to superficial representations. The greatest unsafety that’s present here is the fact that people have had their access to that education cut off. This can result in things like unsafe play, poor communication and boundaries, and unchecked presumptions about what actually happens in a BDSM exchange. I would suggest that the key to healthy sexuality, kinky or otherwise, is about access to education, self-awareness, a complex understanding of consent, healthy relationships, the construction of one’s boundaries, and one’s relationship to pleasure.

Abuses of BDSM negotiations and dynamics occur when people don’t integrate education about these topics, or when they don’t have access to it at all.  Even then, sometimes it still happens, just like it sometimes happens in all relationships.  If the only understanding of BDSM you have is from kink.com or 50 Shades of Grey, it’s my opinion that you should neither be practising nor condemning it.  This is why I do the work that I do – because none of those perspectives are enough, and all of them oversimplify.

I am not particularly interested in promoting BDSM through the BDSM101 workshop. Which aspects of sexuality people choose to engage with is absolutely their choice, and I concern myself with helping people to make those choices consciously. What I’m interested in is providing some information about what BDSM is, and is not, so that people can make their own decisions about it. I’m sure that those who have opposed its discussion at Monash RSC feel the same way.

I can liken what’s happened at Monash to the idea that we shouldn’t teach young people about things like condom use, because it encourages them to have sex.  The fact is that they’re having it anyway, and there are students who are practising kink anyway. To deny them education on how to do it in a risk-aware, consensual way is to fall into a position of negligence.

For students who would have attended the workshop, I’d like to say the following:

BDSM does not equal abuse.  It’s OK to be curious about your own sexuality and to venture into some of its more nuanced spaces. It’s GREAT to question the philosophy and the practice. It’s also OK to question ‘the scene’ (whether that’s on-campus feminism, BDSM, tantra, sex-positivity, etc). All of this helps you to figure out exactly what it is that you want from your sexuality, your embodiment, and your health and wellbeing.

Ask questions. Be intrepid. Get some education and then play, experiment, try things on. Not everything will fit. What doesn’t fit, you can leave behind. What does fit, you can wear fabulously. And no one has the right to deny your experience – it is yours, you own it, and you can find spaces in which you can be proud of it.

If you’re looking for basic discussions of BDSM, or for practical skills, I am more than happy to be a resource to you where possible. I can point you towards some great workshops, books, podcasts and other educational and social resources, and you can make your own decisions and ask your own questions. There is also my BDSM101 resource guide for further information.

I regret that the workshop wasn’t able to occur in this venue, and deeply question the political discourse which has made it so, but hope you’ll all look out for other opportunities provided on and off campus for education and discussion.

Gala Vanting is an award-winning erotic film producer, sex worker, educator, pleasure activist, and erotic imaginist. To find out more about her work visit msgalavanting.com

Image by: Lisa Sorgini