Navigating the Delicate Territory of Rape Fantasy

Reading Savage Love a while back (I had written this right after one of the posts about actual rape and thought I should give it some space), I thought Dan had some solid advice for this girl. Basically, she's chatting up a new dude, and asks what he's into: he replies in a flippant way with some hardcore stuff, and it puts her off. Only she's been into dirty, power-play scenarios before, and enjoyed it; so what's the deal? Dan hits the nail on the head:

"Someone who's turned on by extreme power games—hardcore BDSM, degradation, verbal abuse, role-play scenarios, sexist stereotypes—has to demonstrate that he (or she) is not just extremely trustworthy, but extremely sensible. And when this guy shared his interest in some pretty extreme kinks so early in the relationship...your gut rightly told you that this "nice, good-looking guy" wasn't someone with whom you would feel safe."

It's ok to be into twisted, kinky things. But just like sex can be risky and have consequences, the BDSM lifestyle has to be navigated with planning, carefulness, and trust. This should be common sense, but it must be said: you just don't have kinky sex with strangers (obviously people have regular sex with strangers all the time---different subject altogether). If your thing is to be tied to a bed and whipped with a belt, or have a banana stuck up your ass, or whatever, you really don't want someone you don't explicitly trust putting you in such a vulnerable position. Because that is what fantasy is all about: the illusion of the loss of control. You don't really want to be a slave, you want to pretend to be a slave; you don't really want to hurt or humiliate someone, but you want to pretend to be the type of person that does, and feel those feelings. You need a partner that you can discuss things with so that you have mutual understanding. A good submissive/dominant relationship, for example, works when the dom understand how the sub wants to feel (or be made to feel), and vice versa.

Women with rape fantasies don't actually want to be raped; it's a power scenario that means different things to different women. But the main point is when we act out on fantasy, we are controlling every aspect of it, from the setting to the timing to the partner, thus differentiating it from rape entirely.

Any partner with whom you engage in any kind of non-traditional or violent sexual activity needs to be someone who understands all of these nuances, and that you trust implicitly. So obviously that nixes strangers, since you don't know anything about them. And, like Dan pointed out, people who lack common sense and restraint. Nobody's perfect, but when you're engaging in out-of-the-box sex acts, you need to seek out partners that possess certain traits that make them able to handle delicate and potentially physically or emotionally dangerous situations with your safety and best interest in mind as well as their own.