"Consent Injury" versus "Consent Violation"
Notes on revisions made 2/25/2026: Upon further reflection, the original version of this essay promoted a poor framing of the necessity of consent. Foundational components of consent were taken for granted and not reaffirmed as they should have been. I have revised this essay to reduce my reliance on phrases like "gamble" and focused on the ways specific ongoing relationships can explicitly negotiate for riskier models of consent. It is not okay to take introduce edgier models of consent with a new play partner you have not negotiated these practices with.
Lately I've been using the term "consent injury" rather than "consent violation." I feel like "violation" centers breaking the rules of a venue, it evokes moral impurities, it evokes "defile" or "deflower." As if there is an inherent harm to someone regardless of their own emotions on the matter. The way that "taking" someone's virginity is framed as marring someone.
"Injury" centers the hurt that the someone actually feels, the trauma of having your agency overridden and rendered irrelevant. It's not that you violated my rule or went against what I sad. It's that you hurt me, used me, overpowered me, took advantage of a moment of vulnerability.
I had a consent injury a couple years ago that as time passes I process and realize how much of an impact it has left on me psychically. When I describe what literally happened in detail... it sounds messed up but it also doesn't sound that severe. Was I "violated" by what happened? It's not that the memory makes me feel "violated" but it makes me feel weak, or scared, or mistrusting of others. It makes me feel bad that someone would take advantage of me in that way. The crux of the issue is less "He didn't ask first, that's The Rule as taught In Class." The crux of the issue was he used me sexually with no regard for if I actually wanted it or if I was capable of making that decision. It was the injury to me of having had that experience that is the lasting harm, not the violation of community norms.
The other thing I like about the framing of "consent injury" is that it lets us speak in a more nuanced way about certain risky negotiation practices. Don't get it twisted: Consent is always mandatory. But what consent looks like can sometimes be more complicated than we make it out to be in our basic models of consent.
Under the "consent violation" framework, there are things that people do all the time which are stigmatized or framed as shameful or inherently unethical or nonconsensual. For instance, playing while under the influence of mind-altering substances, adding something to a scene you think your partner would like but didn't ask about explicitly at the start of this scene, or negotiating-up mid-scene.
By the rules I set for events I organize, and the basic foundational model of consent I teach to newbies, all three of those are necessarily consent violations, or at least they are when they are reported to me. If someone says they played with someone while drunk, new elements were introduced that are usually fine but not asked about this time, and consent was sought mid-scene, and that they feel this was all non-consensual, then I will absolutely take their side. It is not good consent practices, and by default we should not be doing these things. As an organizer, the fact that someone reported this to me tells me those things weren't okay.
But in all transparency, I have done BDSM scenes while tripping on psychedelics, or high on cannabis. I have had partners I trust and have rapport with introduce new elements to a scene that they knew I'd love and they were right and I was very happy. I've paused scenes for a bit, took a breath, and negotiated up. And they were fine. I didn't feel violated or hurt. We mutually enjoyed the scene and had fun. I know that there are a lot of people who do these things all the time with established play partners and while we would never tell a newbie to do it this way, we do it ourselves, even though if done at a venue it would possibly be considered a consent violation by the policies of the event.
With the consent injury framework, we have the ability to frame these actions not as inherently violating but as a riskier practices that can be negotiated as part of your risk assessment with a specific play partner.
All kink is risky, and you should not be introducing new risks to a scene without the consent of your play partner. Typically this means not introducing a kink to a scene without negotiations, such as electroplay, but we could also think of our consent models this way. You should not introduce the risk of mind-altering substances to your kink practice without first negotiating it and discussing the risks with your established partner while sober. Discuss the risks, and if they fall within your risk profiles, then obtain explicit consent to negotiate and/or play while on mind-altering substances as part of your personal dynamic. As an event organizer, I can say it's outside my risk profile to introduce the variable of mind-altering substances to an event I moderate, without commenting on if it's wrong for someone to do in private.
If you add a new element to a scene that wasn't discussed in advance but that you think your play partner will like, this is by-definition not consensual. However, many established play partners negotiate some level of consensual non-consent. It is common to have standing negotiations for certain scene elements that are okay to introduce to any scene without explicit negotiation each time. Advanced models of consent are built upon the foundations of basic models like FRIES. You do not introduce an advanced model of consent such as CNC without that FRIES foundation. CNC without explicit advanced consent is not CNC, it's just not consent.
In an established play partnership, you might, from a basic foundation of a FRIES model, negotiate the walls and limits of a sandbox, and say that within this sandbox, anything else is fair game. You can construct that riskier model of consent together as part of negotiations and risk assessment. You can explore that risk profile together. You can build an established relationship where it is okay to introduce entirely new scene elements without negotiations, and it's not inherently violating, it's just a much riskier way to play. It's okay to take bigger risks together, so long as you negotiate it in a risk-aware manner.
If you negotiate up mid-scene, it's quite possible your partner is not able to freely consent. You're taking a big risk that your play partners can't properly think through saying anything other than yes, or that the power imbalance of being mid-scene will interfere with their ability to safely say no to you. You're risking damage your relationship and the trust you've built. It's a big risk to take, and yet people consensually take that risk all the time. You and your play partners should discuss your risk profile around negotiating-up, and how you'd like to mitigate, accept, or avoid the risk entirely. With some of my play partners, we will negotiate up after a ten minute break from the scene to do aftercarey things and ground ourselves, which mitigates but doesn't eliminate the risks associated with negotiating up. That's within our risk profile. With a new play partner, I would never do that. As an event organizer, I will always treat negotiating-up as non-consent if someone reports it to me as non-consent. It simply violates the F in FRIES, and it's too risky to me as an organizer to be playing in the murkier areas here. If someone reports something that violates the "freely-given" principle of consent as non-consent, then as far as I'm concerned, it is non-consent.
So, I have come to prefer consent injury over consent violation for these reasons. What do you think?
