What are the risks?

BDSM is on the edge to some people and when it is subject to investigation then it becomes a field day to the media. The latest case is this tragic accident that took place in Canada.

To me, the risk of dying and BDSM doesn’t belong together – Never. BDSM is built upon trust and respect and the foundation for that is NEVER to put your partner in any danger. There is no doubt about the fact that what happened in Canada is a tragic accident.

But the way the incident is portraited in media, makes me wanna raise some questions:

• Were the two people involved lifestylers?
• Did they have an established relationship or was it a random meeting?
• Do BDSM really involve a higher risk of danger?

The first question refers to how experienced people are when they do BDSM. My opinion is, like I said in other blogposts, with inexperience comes a higher risk of danger. The dom doesn’t read the limits, the sub doesn’t communicate in a proper way, thinking that no matter what level of pain you experience – You still have to take it as you are a sub. That is dangerous and wrong – A scene is a dialogue between the parties involved, a dialogue that doesn’t have to be a spoken one. If you are inexperienced or vanilla BDSMer, then the dialogue can be misinterpreted or missing and that is when the accidents happens.

The second question refers to my notion that a random BDSM partner doesn’t know you and then it also might be harder to “read the situation”. Of course the element of uncertainty can be an arousing factor by itself, but the risk is probably also higher as well. My experience is that good scenes are done with a partner that you can read and understand during the scene. You are also more likely to have had a boundary discussion if it is a person that you do scenes with on a regular basis.

Are the risks higher when you do BDSM? Not always – If you add uncertainties and inexperience into the mix, then BDSM can get dangerous. But ordinary sex can also get dangerous as well under similar circumstances.

I don’t like the fact that media try to make it out that it is BDSM, almost like a entity on its own, that is dangerous. It is when people do BDSM under certain conditions that it becomes a dangerous thing – And of course, seasoned BDSM veterans make mistakes as well. The only thing is that media point the finger at BDSM, because it is so grateful to write about deaths connected to people’s kinks. The article I am referring to is even listing deaths that has been connected to BDSM during a couple of years – This definatly validates my observation that media is having a field day when things like this happens.

Why don’t they do a list with people that have died during ordinary sex?