My brother's bible class was teaching him about "addiction"

[Aractus]

If we're going to say voluntarily doing something that's likely to cause bruising and such, we're going to have to ban sports. Saying that all harm is bad doesn't seem right to me. Hell, working out harms the body if you're doing it correctly.

That's a-whole-nother matter, but yes people who are injured whilst playing sports are entitled to be compensated for those injuries. It is true that certain injuries can be anticipated and expected in sports.

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I'm getting the feeling, from this, that you don't have a lot of experience with bdsm. That's fine, but I do need to point out that you're severely overstressing the case by imagining this as the kind of harm one goes to the hospital for. There are bruises, yes, but rarely more harsh than what you'd get from a punch on the arm. I'm not going to sit here and pretend no kink related injuries ever happen, but responsible kinksters understand the risks and account for them.

As I said, it's a legal grey area at best and in pornography a legal red area (except in the USA).

The broader issue is that the USA supplies pornography it thinks is acceptable, but that everywhere else thinks is not. Just like Denmark in the 1970's and their legally produced child porn.

As far as harm in pornography - or the broader adult industry - I don't think the argument can be made that harm is OK. Or for that matter that it's okay to perform high-risk scenes without condoms.

Brooke Ashley (Anne Marie Ballowe), for instance, contracted HIV whilst performing a scene for a movie entitled "the World's Biggest Anal Gangbang". Why viewers need to see a 50-man anal gang-bang is beyond me.

Now you can argue "oh well nurses are at risk of contracting HIV too you know" - that's true, that's why we have safeguards in place. We don't let them perform extremely risky behaviour. Same thing with the sex industry - condoms are mandatory in the Australian sex industry.

As for Kink, perhaps you can explain it to me, but it was my understanding that condom-use was made mandatory in 2012 across LA and enforceable in all public venues (ie booked venues), and Kink continues to ignore the law:

Now on the other side of the camera, porn performer Cameron Bay told reporters in a recent press conference that in her last porn shoot before testing positive for HIV, the male porn star she was having sex with had a bleeding penis -- and he wasn't wearing a condom. After stopping briefly, the cameras continued rolling, she said. According to Cal/OSHA it is ILLEGAL for bodily fluids to touch skin or mucous membranes and that condoms are mandated by law. Kink.com doesn't care though. No one in the porn industry cares about the lives of performers. Performers don't even care about themselves!

Choking back tears, Bay continued to describe her last shoot, filmed at a public bar in San Francisco for Kink.com, a well known company for shooting violent porn.

• "There were up to 50 people in the room with us. And we were laying on top of them. And they were touching inappropriately," Bay said. "It all happened so fast. I didn’t realize how unsafe it was until I saw the pictures ... You're on a whole other level when you're doing something so extreme."

https://www.thepinkcross.org/pinkcross-blogs/hiv-outbreak-among-porn-stars-2013

STIs are much higher in porn performers than the general population, and although gay porn uses condoms (and refuses to do HIV or STI testing), "straight porn" traditionally refuses to use condoms and relies on ineffective STI testing (ineffective since there have been at least 5 outbreaks in the past 10 years requiring a suspension of the industry's activities including one this year).

You need to think beyond the scope of BDSM in your private life - you're in control of the activity and the risks involved. In the sex-industry (including pornography), regardless of whether it's BDSM or other activity you are not in control of all the risks.

So where do you draw the line, and why? If a girl gets spanked in a porno, is that over the line?

Yes that is the legislated line - violence or simulated violence isn't acceptable according to our classification system.

I would argue that Kink does rough movies, but in their work I've never seen more than redness of the skin.

Then you don't know how pornography is shot. Vaginal and anal tearing is (and hence bleeding) is very common because of the length of time shot and the activities (i.e. a 10-hour shoot). So is bruising. That's why they have to pause shoots and lets make-up artists do their thing. And that's just for "normal scenes".

Don't believe me? Watch this:

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At around 30 mins the guys are shocked by what they see on a porn set. At 31:40 one of them says "it's disgusting what I saw today, it was absolutely disgusting and heartbreaking what I saw today it was absolutely heartbreaking".