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Kinky Sex Gone Wrong: Legal Prosecutions Concerning Consent, Age Play, and Death via BDSM

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Abstract

This commentary begins by describing the author’s research and expert witness practice serving sex and gender minorities, especially practitioners of BDSM/kinky sex. Then, it reviews the three most common reasons that BDSM is legally prosecuted. First, consent: was this assault, rape, and/or kidnapping, or was it consensual kinky sex that either got out of hand or is now being strategically employed to punish the other partner? Second, age play: was this adult trying to have sex with children or was he (and it is virtually always men) intending to age play with an adult who is pretending to be an adolescent? Third, death by kinky sex: was this a person who murdered their lover or was this an accidental death? Finally, this article concludes with recommendations for kinksters who wish to assure consent and safe play, and for litigators involved in the prosecution of kinky sex.

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Notes

  1. While the number of women prosecuted for sex crimes is increasing (Cortoni, Babchishin, & Rat, 2017), most people prosecuted for sex-related crimes are men (Zinzow & Thompson, 2015) and all of the defendants in my practice to date have been men.

  2. For example, DragonCon; Endless Poly Summer; Frolicon; Dark Odyssey; Sex Down South; South East Leather Fest (SELF); etc.

  3. For example, the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists; American Psychiatric Association; American Psychological Association; American Sociological Association; Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality; and Society for the Study of Social Problems; etc.

  4. For example, Atlanta Polyamory Weekend; Finding Freedom; Loving More; SexPosCon; Woodhull Summit for Sexual Freedom; etc.

  5. I found that I could tolerate only so many “dick pics.”

  6. Facebook is becoming a less common format for age-play discussions because Facebook content monitors have become quite adept at identifying and reporting suspicious or illegal activity to law enforcement officials.

  7. I intentionally do not list those words here or provide other specifics that would easily enable a sexual predator to mimic age play in order to evade or muddy prosecution.

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    Elisabeth Sheff

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Sheff, E. Kinky Sex Gone Wrong: Legal Prosecutions Concerning Consent, Age Play, and Death via BDSM. Arch Sex Behav 50, 761–771 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-020-01866-w

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