Rising Interest in Consensual Non-Consent (2025)

What contemporary American society currently considers kinky sex has been a feature of human societies since we started drawing on cave walls with pictograms of erotic spanking. It has never before, however, been so publicly visible or widely practiced. Kinky sex covers a huge range of behaviors and interactions, many of which have been gaining public visibility and popularity with their celebration in movies, books, and pornography.

BDSM

BDSM is an acronym that stands for three related subcategories that are the basis of kinky sex. Bondage and Discipline (B/D) is when people tie each other up or somehow restrain each other and then physically “discipline” the bound person, often with spanking, flogging, or other forms of impact play.

Dominance and submission (D/s) is a form of power exchange in which the submissive player grants the dominant player specific kinds of power in negotiated circumstances with clear boundaries that define what is OK and what is not.

Sadism and Masochism (S/M) is the sadistic glee of inflicting pain or humiliation on someone who enjoys it, and the masochistic joy of having that pain or humiliation inflicted upon them by a skilled sadist. These kinds of interactions, combined with role play (pretending to be someone else to enhance fantasy), costuming (wearing outfits and using props that support the role play fantasy), fetishes (focusing on specific items, body parts, or activities, i.e., leather, feet, stiletto heels- as paramount to erotic interest) and other adventurous elements constitute the umbrella category of kinky sex. People who engage in kinky sex are termed kinksters.

Consent

Consent is crucial in these interactions for a range of reasons, among which is the fact that consent is the primary distinguishing factor between intimate partner violence (formerly termed abuse) and BDSM. BDSM is consensual because people discuss it first, in great detail, negotiating what is OK and what is out of bounds. Then they check in during the kinky play to see how it is going, and make sure that the person still feels OK about it after the scene is over, and even days later.

Perhaps most importantly, BDSM is done with playful, joyful, and perhaps erotic intent that is designed for people to experience pleasure. Even when people establish consent at first, it does not mean that they are finished—consent must be maintained across time with repeated check-ins and is revokable at any point by either party.

CNC

Consensual non-consent (CNC) sounds anachronistic, but can actually be quite fun for kinksters who know each other well and carefully negotiate before engaging in this more extreme form of interaction. CNC is a negotiated agreement in which the players agree on the course of the scene before hand as usual, but eliminate the opportunity for the submissive person to deploy a safeword during the scene. The sub might struggle, plead for it to stop, and/or fight back, and the action might look extreme. CNC scenes commonly involve rape-play, attempts to escape, resistance, and/or wrestling.

These activities are riskier than play that includes a safe word because they are not as easily stopped when someone becomes uncomfortable. As such, these scenes require extensive negotiation and planning so that players can engage in interactions that would otherwise indicate a lack of consent with the mutual understanding that such activities do not, in that scene, signal a true desire to stop. Kinksters engaged in CNC are thus able to act out a nonconsensual fantasy in real life, with safety precautions in place, while simultaneously playing with ostensibly resistant and coercive behaviors.

Crucially, CNC absolutely must be negotiated beforehand and the boundaries identified must be respected during the encounter, or it is simply nonconsensual.

When CNC Goes Awry

Ideally, only experienced kinksters who have done a lot of other play and learned many safety techniques engage in CNC. In practice, however, many curious folks who want to experiment with kinky sex try CNC even when they don’t know enough about what they are doing to keep everyone safe during extreme play.

The most common issue is that one of the players, often the one in a submissive role who tends to be bound or on the receiving end of the action, feels that things are going too far and has no mechanism to stop the scene. If the person playing the dominant role is observant and knows their play partner well, then they will be able to ascertain that the scene has gone awry and take steps to modify or end it. If, however, the dominant person is unskilled, uneducated, mood-altered, or simply doesn’t care enough about their submissive’s well-being, then they might not understand or attend to their play partner’s cues and continue the scene even though it has transitioned from fun to real discomfort or perhaps even terror.

Playing Safely with CNC

The National Coalition for Sexual Freedom (NCSF) is a nonprofit organization that advocates for consensual non-monogamy and safe, authentic, kinky sexual expression. NCSF has designed a method for kinksters to use when attempting to craft true consent called Explicit and Prior Permission (EPP) that can help guide people who want to have consensual adventurous sex.

In addition to using the principles of EPP to carefully establish consent before getting started with kinky sex scenes, the players should also take their time to explore each other’s desires and boundaries before moving on to the more extreme forms of play, like CNC. Starting small, with short scenes that have the option for a safe word and lower levels of physical and psychological risk, can help partners get to know each other and build a foundation of trust before attempting the trickier forms of play like CNC.

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