No constitutional right to consensual BDSM acts?

[robvalue]

I agree Thump.

Thanks very much Joe for your analysis, that's most interesting

Based on that, it does seem mostly reasonable until the end. I can understand that a foregone conclusions especially is not acceptable, even if his reasoning sounds good on paper. It's a bit over my head in terms of legal complexity (the last bit) but I agree with you that it seems a very strange and narrow way of approaching the subject. What exactly they are ruling, I'm not quite sure. "You don't have the fundamental right to do consensual BSDM" seems a bizarre statement. Could you explain how this would work as a precedent in further cases please, if such a thing is apparent?

I don't understand how the courts are ever going to hear about a case of BDSM that didn't involve breach of consent, unless it's an extremely severe case (such as inflicting irreversible damage or something). At this point, maybe you can make a case that you shouldn't legally be able to give away your rights by verbal consent. But to lump this is in with general BDSM that anyone who isn't repressed and bigoted would probably consider fine is really stupid.

Such harmful situations hardly seem unique to BDSM. It's almost implied that people won't be able to control themselves or something, and there's too much of a risk of it getting out of hand... if I'm reading it at all right. That amounts to nannying.

LadyForCamus asked about pornography, and I've been thinking on that. The advantage of this setting is that two actors can work together to make it seem "worse" than it is, for viewing pleasure. So I'm personally fine with it as long as all actors are fully consensual, and know exactly what they are getting themselves into. I would feel that any actual pain or physical damage should be minimised as much as possible for the actors, and that it would be on a case by case basis to decide if they have been pushed too far. It's not the kind of thing I like to watch personally, but as long as everyone involved is treated decently, I don't see a problem.