There was news last week of a fascinating – but concerning – court case, in which Steven Lock, a 43-year-old Ipswich man, was cleared of causing actual bodily harm to his partner in a BDSM scene that didn’t work out. It raises some interesting issues, and so I wanted to explore it here.
According to reports, the couple had met through a dating website, and begun a relationship. They had an “adventurous” sex life, involving “threesomes and bondage sessions and filming themselves having sex”. She’d “had a tattoo in an intimate place saying ‘This is the property of Steven Lock'”.
Apparently inspired by ‘Fifty Shades’, they then agreed to master / slave play. She sent him a letter agreeing to allow him “to use me and my body as a slave… I am willing to do anything my master sees fit for me to do. This may include pain if my tasks are not completed to his satisfaction.”
The following day, he tied her to the bedroom floor, and gave her fourteen strokes of a looped and knotted rope – “one for each occasion on which she had ‘failed as a slave'”. The strokes were excruciating and left bruises, but it “all happened so fast, she didn’t even think of using” their agreed safeword.
He said he’d “pushed boundaries”. She said: “I knew there would be pain involved and I knew I wasn’t going to like it but I’d agreed to it and had to follow it through.”
They then had sex; he left her chained in the bedroom; she texted a friend in a state of distress asking them to call the police saying: “He has got me chained up like a dog… He is whipping the s*** out of me. I need your help bad.”
The police arrived and found her outside his home in a ‘distressed’ state. He’d released her “after she refused to share his bed”, giving her the key to the padlock. She’d fled “fled to the bus-stop, while he sent her an angry text message”. Charges were then brought.
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Clearly, I don’t know the details beyond what was reported in the press – and hope I’ve pieced together what happened accurately and impartially from various fragmented and incomplete newspaper reports. But the case seems to highlight the risks that we all face when playing in the scene.
The woman concerned seems to have had a ghastly experience, with a flogging that was far harder than she anticipated from her partner; she was left feeling assaulted, abused.
The man in question ended facing criminal charges after what had been set up as a consensual scene with an existing play partner, with written agreements and a safeword in place.
There will inevitably be occasions when scenes don’t work out – when what happens in practice doesn’t meet expectations, or proves more challenging than anticipated for one or both parties despite what had reasonably appeared to be informed consent.
I guess some sensible tests might include:
– Was the play entirely voluntary and consensual – without any degree of practical or emotional coercion?
– Had the parties done enough to discuss the scene openly, in as much detail as they each wanted to know – covering (for example) what might happen and what wouldn’t, and the likely style / tone / severity of play?
– Were any limits discussed, openly and honestly, without any sense of duress – in so far as either party wanted to define them?
– Was there a safeword, to be invoked without reservation or fear of retribution where needed, leading to the immediate cessation of play, if either party wanted one?
– Were expectations – and the above discussions – suitably well-informed? Or was either party perhaps naïve about how things might be in practice – and, if so, should the other party reasonably have known or checked this?
– Were all of the above agreements honoured in practice?
– Did both parties make reasonable attempts to adjust what was happening if it was clearly evident during the play that things were not working to plan or were causing real distress to the other person?
Were any of the above to be breached, I’d have cause for concern. From reports, it doesn’t sound as if they were – and so in this case it appears that justice was done. That’s a relief. But I feel desperately sorry for the woman concerned too, worried that it came to court, and uneasy that there may be more similar cases as novices start to experiment in this Fifty Shades-inspired era.
Hello Abel,
Firstly, let me say that I am amazed that no one else has commented on this very important blog., whereas another recent one has twelve responses!
It does rather seem as if the man got carried away and the lady panicked on receiving harsher treatment than she expected and was then abandoned when she probably needed comfort and reassurance. But then, as you say, we only know what we read. There may well be other factors involved and of course, the press can mislead their readers.
I am reassured that the verdict seems to be correct, but given the agreed master/slave relationship, I wonder whether that means that barring severe injury, anything goes? I suppose that what it boils down to, is that one must have faith, trust and confidence in the man… Personally I would never go into this sort of relationship, but to each his or her own….
I wonder if the lady was fairly young and inexperienced – perhaps too young to cope with such situations, however much she may have agreed in advance.
I think your ‘sensible tests’ are are well thought out.
An important blog entry. – Thank you.
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