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The Legal Dangers of Rough Sex
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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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Peter Beinart, senior political writer for The Daily Beast, is associate professor of journalism and political science at City University of New York and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation. His new book, The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris, will be published by HarperCollins in June. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.
hasbro
The real reason you people are into this b.s. is because you're so unconscious you need someone to slap you upside the head to wake you up, even slightly. Idiots...
shoshido
In those two lines, I think you got it exactly right.
Monk66
I remember when I was scared to go past missionary.
http://www.xeromag.com/fvbdsm.html
cesspool
SSC
gak001
You clearly don't know anything about human psychology or BDSM. You should keep your opinions to yourself until you know what you're talking about.
KoverStar
This is idiocy incarnate. One is either conscious, semi-conscious or unconscious, not "so unconscious."
Beyond that, BDSM is a conscious decision between consenting parties. Without consent it isn't BDSM. It's assault, kidnapping, etc.
I can't help saying that your comment reads a lot like something Jetton would've said. Is there something you'd like to share?
flyoverland
This headline is incorrect. Rod Jetton is the former Speaker of the House, not the Speaker of the House. He is a good example of what you get when you accept the professional political class. Politics should not be a profession. Missouri ended up with a 31 year old Governor and a Speaker also in his thirties. I would hope we would expect a bit more experience in these offices. The only thing worse that the professional political class is political royalty.
Ixthil
I am going to "Monday Morning Quarterback" their game, but "green balloons" is way too cumbersome. Two syllables maximum. All levity aside, though, the story takes a very sinister turn if they _weren't_ engaged in a game.
Cymatic
I agree - I can imagine something like that might be hard to remember if you are in agony.
I'm not into SM but I can understand the appeal. However, it sounds like Mr. Jettison is a real ***hole and probably screws up people's lives. If his "partners" regularly are so adverse to his treatment that they withdraw their permission - and this happens regularly enough that he has to draw a moral code for it - then he is a ruthless jerk.
Also, the Stockholm Syndrome would have a pretty large effect in giving him some approval immediately afterwards - but later after it wears off and these women realize that they are screwed up because of him, then they get angry. It's a human instinct to try to bond with a torturer or a captor, and if this is the only thing giving him approval afterwards then he deserves to taste the other side of the equation in jail.
Cymatic
I get the feeling he chose that 'safe word' because it is hard to remember. Most choose a simple word like "Red" because it IS easy to remember when your mind is somewhere else. Also, anyone should stop if someone says something out of the fantasy like "I'm saying the code word now".
fusundo
Why The Daily Beast gives space to this pervert is difficult to understand. What is even more shocking is how this guy tries to rationalize his sickness with a thin layer of respectability.
nortonclybourn
If the Marborough man knows of a safe way to choke people, he should let the medical profession in on his secret.
LeonMarborough
Soft pressure applied to the carotid artery, not to the windpipe. I think the medical profession is already aware.
shoshido
This is ridiculous. It does not take three pages to explain why someone you're doing is okay if it is really okay; using the word "play" to describe an injurious activity is as Orwellian as any of the words the Bush administration used to justify torture; and sharp metal objects have no place in healthy sexual activity. I can't believe there's even a need to explicitly state that.
gak001
Consent is consent. If you consent to a beating, then there's no legal recourse. Of course there are limits, but until it's a capital offense, I don't think there's a problem.
dooreen
I think manufactured consent is hard to prove.
Cymatic
Just because someone gives permission for one thing, doesn't mean they can't have limits. There are lots of rape cases involving husbands and wives. She consents to rough sex but he forces her do anal sex which she explicitly says no to - that is rape. Consenting to BDSM doesn't mean you are consenting to intentional injury or unwilling torture. There is a line there that most in that community stay safely on one side of.
gak001
Very true, and that's why a lot of members of the BDSM community use forms where you can check off what's acceptable before-hand and outline your limits.
LeonMarborough
You're incorrect in calling it "injurious" activity. We work in the parameters of sadism that results in no broken bones, permanent scarring, or anything that requires medical attention. minor bruising, welting, scratching or light-choking is cannot be called "injurious."
dooreen
What is different about this, and going to countries and destroying the village to save it.
The education system creates all this, in my opinion.
WiltonDiary
Sounds more like home schooling to me!
dooreen
Naw, home schoolers usually don't land up with what appears to me to be, self esteem issues.
keemia
Seek a shrink.
mzkitti
LOTS OF REALLY CRAZY PEOPLE IN THIS WORLD.
Colonel-Burton
There is nothing wrong with BDSM, it is simply a different form of persuing sexual excitment. Problems can and do arise, but that does not doom the concept to barbarity. Reasons why people engage in such activity are irrelevant.
Many of the commentators seem to regard the practice as some form of mental problem, something to be contained or cured, but it is not. People do not choose what arouses them, if you are attracted to the opposite sex, you simply are. If you are attracted to the same sex, you simply are. If you are attracted to BDSM, you simply are, and anything in between.
Just as one does not learn to like the taste of food, so too does one not learn to enjoy a specfic type of sexual encounter more than another.
What two consenting adults choose to do in private is no-one elses's business. If it is an orgy, it is no-one's business but their own. If they are playing Monopoly, it is no-one's business but their own. Of course, the key word is "consenting", and certain things, like cooking meth or killing small animals, of course demand intervention, but consensual sexual intercourse does not.
LeonMarborough
Thank you Colonel. I'm delighted to read most of these posts, and the people who speak so harshly and critically of BDSM are clearly doing so from a lack of knowledge and experience on the matter.
My friends and I are very conscious and clear-minded about what we pursue and how we pursue it, and have in many cases forged the deepest friendships and romantic relationships I've had.
kayjay
Exactly right. I'm really surprised by the number of negative comments regarding BDSM -- and I think your food analogy is particularly adept.
Plenty of people like painfully spicy food. Yet for those who don't enjoy hot food to question the sanity or moral character of those who do says more about the sanity, moral character, or perhaps intellect of those questioning than it does the enjoyment of spicy food.
KoverStar
I read the author's blog and it seems that he started it so he could lay claim to something in the way of credentials to have a say about Jetton vis-a-vis BDSM. One entry, made in December of 2009 no less, hardly qualifies as a blog.
Practicing BDSM without ending up in jail, the hospital or the morgue(!) is all about knowing who you're dealing with--in and out of the bedroom. It's that simple.
LeonMarborough
Hi Kover, this is Leon. I want to acknowledge your reference to my "infant" blog. I've actually been writing this blog for about a year, but it's been on a different social-networking sight. I decided to transfer it, one entry at a time, to a more accessible web-network. (Blogger.com)
If you're interested in reading more, check it periodically. Thanks.
evanrm
This is a perversion. That's all. It is not normal. Trying to speaking about as anything other than freak behaviour is lying. Contrary to opinion, people completely choose what attracts them. There may be initial desire, but the choice to follow through with that is freely made. The more you indulge in sick behaviours, the more that behaviour and lust gets ingrained.
nortonclybourn
Oooh, someone is scared.
itstrue
Wow I am really surprised at the level of hostility toward BDSM behaviours. People do not choose what attracts them - I don't like blondes, some people love them - it wasn't a choice. Also, what "attracts" a person to a sexual partner and what feels good during the sexual act are completely different things. You have even less control over your body's physical reaction to stimuli than you do over who you find attractive. Of course, you do have a point that these things have to be followed up, repeated, taken to the next level to reach true fetish status - nobody starts off in hood getting burned by cigarettes - but pain has always had a role in sex, even "healthy" sex. Especially for women, pain is intrinsically bound with pleasure in the sexual act. One also has to remember that physical stimuli feel different depending on the situation - ever lightly bite your tongue or lips for the sensation of it? Ever find satisfaction in picking off a scab or pimple? Ever enjoyed eating a meal so spicy your eyes water? Then you have experienced the magical mixture of pleaure and pain that every human encounters at some point. Small amounts of controlled pain activate the release of endorphins - that's a fact. So the whole point of BDSM is that it is controlled and doesn't go beyond what feels good to the person. It is true the you develop a tolerance for this kind of pain, just as people who eat lots of spicy food can eat hotter and hotter food, and often need increasingly spicy dishes to satisfy their craving, but that does not make this behavior sick or in any way unnatural. Even the Kama Sutra gives advice on using teeth and fingernails in a controlled and pleasurable way in the bedroom and that was written over 800 years ago.
LeonMarborough
Thank you, itstrue! Well written indeed.
itstrue
sorry - 1800 years ago!
Scyldemort
BDSM, like every other fetish which I don't actually share, remains completely incomprehensible to me. No matter how many times someone tries to explain why they might want to suffer or inflict pain on a loved one in a sexual context, I can never really understand, and never will; pain hurts. That's why they call it pain.
Still, to each their own.
raphael-a
I think that "Daily Beast!" would make a great safeword.
dailyraphirmations.com
LeonMarborough
Ha! Clever idea, but it might get mistaken for "You Beast!" which is something I've heard women cry out. :)
Monk66
I tried to out.
It's not as good as you'd think.
Thank you.
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