Abstract
“A Record of Violence” engages with the continuing criminalization of BDSM activities that cause minor injuries within the Western common law jurisdictions of Australia, Canada, England and Wales, and the United States of America. It highlights the impact of criminalization on BDSM participants and communities, identifies the barriers preventing decriminalization from occurring, and explores the liberalizing potential of claims based on BDSM identity. It notes that the major barrier holding back legal change is the interlinking of BDSM and violence within legal discourse, and it shows how this barrier can be overcome by using the broader academic literature on “violence” to better understand how BDSM and violence dis/connect. This chapter concludes that (1) BDSM activities not involving physical force/injury fail to satisfy any legally relevant definition of violence and (2) BDSM activities involving physical force/injury may constitute descriptive violence, but they do not constitute legally disqualifying normative violence.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | The Power of BDSM |
| Subtitle of host publication | Play, Communities, and Consent in the 21st Century |
| Editors | Brandy Simula, Robin Bauer, Liam Wignall |
| Place of Publication | New York |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press, USA |
| Chapter | 10 |
| Pages | 188-206 |
| Number of pages | 19 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 9780197658628 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9780197658598 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 28 Apr 2023 |
