The Legal Dangers of Rough Sex
Former Missouri House Speaker Rod Jetton says the woman he beat during sex consented to it. Now he’s charged with a felony—and perhaps a classic casualty of BDSM’s legal booby trap.
One reason many of us get into BDSM is to bring ourselves to what we believe is our limit, and then see if we can push ourselves a little further. Sometimes, that involves screaming, pleading, and begging our partner to stop. It seems contrary to the cardinal rule we’ve been taught about sex since we were adolescents: that “no means no.”
But if you’re into BDSM, sometimes “green balloons” means no. That’s according to the woman who’s accused former Missouri House Speaker Rod Jetton with choking, beating, and possibly drugging her. She claims that after the incident, when Jetton left her apartment, he kissed her on the cheek and said, “You should have said ‘green balloons.’” He was supposedly referring to their “safeword,” the previously agreed-upon word or phrase that partners agree means “stop” before they begin an intense or dangerous sexual scene.
A sexual encounter that lands one person in the hospital (or the morgue) and the other in prison is the ultimate nightmare for people who engage in sex that tests the limits of physical pain.
The details of the incident are still extremely sketchy. Jetton’s accuser claims there was never an agreement or consent for what occurred in her apartment on the night of November 15. According to the police report, there were hand-shaped bruises across her face and a “severe pain” all over her body, that she faded in and out of consciousness, and that she awoke to find him binding her arms with his belt. That doesn’t sound amorous to me, and I know people who like to play rough. According to the probable-cause affidavit, Jetton and the accuser did agree upon the “green balloons” safeword, but in what sort of context the agreement was made remains very unclear.
But even if this was a consensual encounter with a pre-established safeword, it puts both partners in a scary legal predicament, one that haunts those of us who are into things like beating and choking during sex. A sexual encounter gone horribly wrong, landing one person in the hospital (or the morgue) and the other in prison, is the ultimate nightmare for people who engage in sex that tests the limits of physical pain.
We in the BDSM community often joke about giving and receiving severe beatings, making threats and using hyperbolic statements like, “I’m going to beat you so hard you’ll wish you’d never been born.” That’s never actually the case—it’s just part of getting into the role. People into BDSM are extremely concerned about not causing any real harm. I’ve heard first-time attendees of what are known as “play-parties” say they felt very safe there because of the strong sense of risk-awareness. Any good Dominant will check in on his sub (look him or her in the eye periodically and ask if they’re OK), and one who doesn’t will earn themselves a bad reputation very quickly. A beating taken too far can break bones. Choking, done incorrectly, could leave your partner dead. Most kinksters who are involved in very dangerous play (also known as edge-play) and experiment in things like fire-play and knife-play almost always train themselves with basic first-aid skills for cuts, burns, and serious bruises.
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