This greatly pains me: it has recently come to my attention that some people, primarily experienced players, have abused PRICK to offload responsibility, or responsibility following mistakes/mishaps/etc, onto a newbie, saying they should have PRICK. Ok, this in itself isn’t new, but it’s that a community is normalizing the acceptance of the practice.
As an experienced player, you have the “responsibility” to lead a less experienced person to knowledge. You have the “responsibility” to educate them—the responsibility to know when they are not ready yet, or that they still need training wheels.
That said, I have seen “newbies” use the newbie factor to abuse the “I didn’t know” factor as well. I have seen this serially. At some point, they should no longer be able to say “I didn’t know.”
Ok, back on topic. Personal Responsibility In Consensual Kink: A Discussion and points to remember
First, as noted above, this is a two-way street. All participants have responsibility and accountability that they should take upon themselves.
A: That means ensuring that the other party has done their part. Especially if they are new, that means your responsibility is also to know if they are new
B: Part of your responsibility is understanding SSC and RACK.
i.e. BE RISK AWARE
(Link to SSC/RACK discussion)
C: What is personal responsibility?
- Do YOUR OWN research, study, and stay informed.
- “Know what’s up!”
- “Trust but verify.”
- Know you don’t know everything.
- Know your limits
- Don’t blame or rely solely on another. Yes, use them as a starting point, but they are not the end-all be-all. That primarily being the one/person or persons you’re playing with, or even their community. Each community is different,has its own quirks, norms, and rules.
- know this person’s differences. This person, place, community, dm, etc’s differences… norms, rules, quirks.
Second, the first part combines with the second part, and that is to negotiate! Discuss goals, experience, knowledge, risks, and consensual activities. Negotiation is where you express your goals, experience, and knowledge level, risk profile, but also learn about and come to terms with theirs as you work towards a consent profile with the person.
Negotiation is a simple concept, yet a complicated topic where missteps frequently happen. Interests and negotiation topics are discussed under my section of questions and questionnaires. I highly suggest knowing and reviewing Jay Wiseman’s 16-point checklist. Both a bullet point and a deeper explanation with examples are included. His checklist helps guide you as you drill down on goals, experience, knowledge, and risks while developing a consent profile.
Experience and knowledge: This is a two-part topic.
As RACK promoter Gary Switch points out, “study, training, technique, and practice.”
You may know about something, but do you “KNOW” about it?
One anecdote that has been frequently quoted in BDSM is about a newbie who has dreamed for years of getting their 20+ lashings, but never having experienced a proper lashing, they don’t know what they can take, nor have they built up a tolerance to said lashings, and thus end up tapping out after two hits.
Of course, the story is often embellished by saying they wanted to be punished and “required to take” as in CNC; a CNC in their mind where they don’t have a safeword and can’t stop it.
This is where we come back to experience and knowledge, and is the reason why I have added additional points to the end of Jay Wisemens’s checklist:
- Experience level
- Can you communicate in sub-space
Both of those are technically included under sections:
1: People
9: Bondage
13: Marks
14: Humiliation
However, when skimming them, people often overlook those two points.
D: Consent
Consent is negotiated. We utilize the FRIES model.
It is your personal responsibility to honor consent, and thus know and understand FRIES.
Some key points of fries are:
Informed, hence the negotiation and knowledge of your partner mentioned above.
TO honor the rest of PRICK… “CONSENSUAL Kink”, we refer you to
<<< our full page on consent >>>
To do:
- ADDRESS: Poor usage of A, B, C, D
- how can we make changes to encourage new people get educated
- assumptions & deception