Queering consent: Negotiating critical consent in les-bi-trans-queer BDSM contexts

Abstract

In BDSM community discourse as well as research on BDSM, consent has been treated as an uncomplicated given, often relying on liberal or post-feminist notions of consent as a rational contract between equals until recently. The results of a qualitative study on the les-bi-trans-queer BDSM communities in contrast highlight that on the one hand, queer BDSM technologies of negotiating consent are valuable tools in moving away from heteronormative and liberal notions of consent towards a culture of sexual consent as communicative. On the other hand, limits to BDSM consent technologies are discussed and it is argued that consent needs to be critical and developed collectively.