The rough sex defence: will changing the law fix the problem?
[TW: SA & physical violence]
We need to address the culture that enables defendants to successfully claim their victims consented to death
Earlier this month, MP’s voted in favour of the 2020 Domestic Abuse Bill which includes provisions against the use of the ‘rough sex’ defence. The bill now bans the use of ‘consent for sexual gratification’ as a defence in court. Initially tabled by MPs Harriet Harman and Mark Garnier, the amendments aim to stop defendants from claiming that victims of murder or serious harm consented to the violence inflicted upon them as part of ‘rough sex’.
I made a short documentary about the ‘rough sex’ defence, initially inspired by conversations with friends. From stories of nights out where guys took it ‘a bit far’ in the bedroom to more violent moments that friends would downplay with comments like, ‘oh he was just a bit drunk,’ or, ‘he probably didn’t realise his own strength’. Often it wouldn’t initially occur to them these were abusive moments, presented instead as the fashionable ‘kinky sex’.
But once considered ‘taboo’, rough sex or BDSM is a new normal for a lot of young people.
There is also a modern pressure to engage in this type of sex, afraid of being branded as sexually vanilla. A BBC commissioned survey found that of women who had experienced violence during consensual sex, 42% had felt pressured or forced into it. The reality is probably much worse. As Lady Gaga told me aged 12, in her smash hit ‘Poker Face’, “when it’s love, if it’s not rough it isn’t fun,” and we wouldn’t want to be boring now, would we.
This isn’t behind closed doors, as an increased presence on the high-street sees stores like Ann Summers stocking and dressing their windows with kinky gear and garments. The recent television adaption of Sally Rooney’s Normal People shows Marianne’s experience of BDSM. Airing on BBC One, the 9pm scheduling on a mainstream channel speaks to a more accepting attitude towards depictions of kinky sex.
But this sex is not found in the awkward PowerPoint presentations given by teachers who struggle to even say the word vagina. With overtly sexualized (and massively questionable) episodes of Gossip Girl, fan fiction on Wattpad and threads on Tumblr, it is media consumption that has informed my generation’s sex lives.
Back in 2011, at the age of 14, I remember cranking up the volume on my iPod Nano and blasting out the chorus of Rhianna’s S&M — ‘chains and whips excite me’. That same year, young girls poured over the newly published Fifty Shades of Grey, leafing through the book to giggle at the most explicit content.
The Fifty Shades of Grey franchise is the widest reaching representation of BDSM in mainstream culture and has a lot to answer for, particularly to my generation who became sexually active during the height of its popularity. I know many girls who were tied up with less than glamourous school ties in an attempt to recreate the film’s first sex scene. But the series depicts dangerous moments of passive ‘consent’ given as a result of emotional manipulation, a lack of established rules and a glamorisation of unsafe BDSM practices.
Such depictions are also found in Netflix’s erotic thriller ‘365 Days’. The petition to remove the film has received over 80,000 signatures on Change.org, citing its glorification of abuse. Despite this, it was Netflix’s most-streamed film this June.
If these violent, non-consensual depictions of sex continue to soundtrack our adolescence, to thrive in idolised, romanticised, abusive on-screen relationships, then sexual violence will continue to seep ever deeper into our culture. This insidious cultural shift has more impact than any legislation ever can.
Research for my documentary on the defence showed that porn largely informs young people’s attitudes towards sex. In a survey commissioned for BBC Three, 55% of men said porn had also been their main source of sex education. This is particularly troubling knowing the link often made between violence in porn and violence against women. A 2010 study by University of Arkansas and NYU analyzed pornographic videos and found that 88% of scenes contained physical aggression (principally spanking, gagging and slapping) and 87% of targets were women. Mirrored in reality, a recent BBC commissioned survey found that a third of women have experienced unwanted violence during consensual sex.
Practitioners of BDSM describe healthy and consensual ways of synthesising pain and pleasure in the bedroom. But if you search BDSM on the search engine Ecosia, every single page one result, bar the Wikipedia entry, is a porn website. Although there are resources detailing safe BDSM practice, access to these healthy educational tools is hindered by more readily available eroticized violence.
Young people are therefore inheriting a misappropriated BDSM culture. If content that eroticises abuse is now the primary form of sex education, it’s no wonder the rough sex defence is successful in a world that consumes and accepts non-consensual sexual practices. Although a necessary and important step, addressing the problem only in court, when women have already lost their lives, is too little too late.
The campaign group We Can’t Consent To This believe normalised violence against women in sex is fuelling the ‘sex game gone wrong’ defence. According to their research, 60 women have been killed by men who used this defence. Two thirds of the cases involve strangulation, used in the defence as reference to the BDSM practice of asphyxiation. In four of the recent cases, men viewed extreme violent porn, with themes such as strangulation and murder of women, either before or after they killed the victim.
So if the popular depictions of non-consensual violence in sex are normalising dangerous behaviours and giving oxygen to the so-called ‘rough sex’ defence, why aren’t we addressing these depictions head on? Why aren’t we educating our children on consent and sexual relationships, recognising the evolving sexual and media landscape?
Because we’re too embarrassed. Too British to do so.
A recent BBFC report revealed that although most children had viewed overly aggressive pornography, the majority of parents were in denial about what their children watched online. This denial allows for uneducated, non-consensual behaviour to thrive. Parents are kidding themselves if they think some parental locks or turning off the WiFi at 6pm is going to fix anything.
Making my documentary sparked awkward conversations about BDSM with older family and friends, who made uninformed comments like, ‘oh so like dominatrixs and stuff’. But research suggests 59% of UK women under 40 have experienced slapping and other ‘kinky’ practices during consensual sex. As this study was weighted to represent all women — I’m guessing most were not ‘dominatrixs’. It’s these archaic taboos around sex that are hindering the comprehensive public discourse needed to tackle sexual violence and abuse.
We need to combat public discomfort when discussing sexual preferences and practices in order to address the toxic presentations young people consume. The UK’s old fashioned ‘stiff upper lip’ attitude to sex enables a dangerous culture of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’. We need to have a better idea of young people’s sex lives and the media they consume, in order to inform systems of justice and educational policy.
The Domestic Abuse Bill, on its way to becoming law, will hopefully do more to protect victims of sexual violence and bring justice to their families. But ultimately, addressing the issue in court is already too late. We need a seismic cultural shift in order to stamp out this so-called defence for good.