Is Consent Sexy?

A few weeks ago, my fiancé and I watched the movie Pillion. Actually, I watched it. She rage-quit it after about 15 minutes due to a scene where the main character was physically forced to his knees and made to give a man he’d just met a blowjob. Her issue was the idea of implied rather than explicit consent. “That scene would have been hot if only we heard a discussion where they negotiated the sex and both of them consented to it,” she said. I wasn’t so sure. I could definitely see how that scene could come off as a little rapey, but I knew what the writer and directors were trying to do and why they had left out the consent discussion. I replied that the audience for these movies isn’t typically people like us who are in the kink community and understand enthusiastic consent and negotiations.

“These movies are fantasies made for vanilla audiences, and this is what they fantasize about: being dominated. They don’t understand that consent can be sexy.” I then suspended our plans to watch The Secretary and 9 1/2 Weeks together. If she thought Pillion was bad, seeing James Spader order his employee (played by Maggie Gyllenhaal), who’d just left a mental institution, to bend over his desk and then proceed to spank her, without a word passing between them about consent, would have sent my sweet princess on a misandric rant if not a murderous rampage.

This got me thinking: is it possible to read or watch a hot, kinky sex scene that involves a full negotiation? I’m sure it is, but I don’t believe I’ve ever read one in a book or watched one in a movie.

Even being part of the BDSM community for decades, where consent is sacrosanct, I still found movies like 9 1/2 Weeks, The Secretary, and most recently, Pillion, hot as fuck. But perhaps it would have been sexier to see them actually negotiate the way we do rather than act on subtle hints, clues, assumptions, and suggestions as one does in the vanilla world? Personally, I think even vanilla sex would benefit from a thorough negotiation, and would love to see that on screen. Not to make it hotter, but to introduce the idea of genuine, informed, and enthusiastic mutual consent to the general population.

I understand how people who have never actually done a full negotiation before sex or S&M play might imagine it would kill spontaneity rather than heighten desire and anticipation. I once thought the same thing. They would be wrong, though. A good negotiation where you specifically ask if and where you can suck, bite, lick, squeeze, spank, flog, whip, or penetrate is hot as fuck. Seeing that bashful, lustful, mischievous smile on the face of a submissive when they gleefully, enthusiastically, consent to your most deviant and lascivious desires is so much sexier than you could possibly imagine if you’ve never done it. But would that sexiness translate to film or the written page? Let’s see how that would look.

“Are you open to playing tonight?” Wrath asks, leaning over a woman nearly half his size with green hair and silvery blue eyes like bursts of starlight. She smiles wide and appraises him from head to toe, biting her bottom lip when her eyes reach his.

“Maybe. What did you have in mind?” She asks.

“Answer my question first.” Wrath says, leaning closer and lowering his voice to a rumbling whisper. “Are you open to playing with me? If it’s not a ‘Hell, yes, ' I will take it as a “Hell, no”, and that will be the end of this discussion.”

She lets out a little chuckle and nods in appreciation. “Okay. I can appreciate that. Then… hell yes, I want to play with you. Now, what did you have in mind?”

“How about some impact-play followed by rough sex?”

“Define sex. Are we talking oral, vaginal, or anal?”

Wrath smiles. “All of the above.”

“Giving or receiving?”

“Well, I don’t have a vagina.”

“I assume nothing,” she says, and they both laugh.

“I’m personally not a fan of being pegged either. I am strictly a top. So both giving and receiving to oral, but giving only to anal.”

“I’m cool with all of that, so far. What kind of impact-play did you have in mind?”

“That depends,” Wrath says, grinning. His eyes sparkle with lust and something darker — meaner. “Do you prefer stingy or thuddy?”

“Thuddy. Definitely thuddy,” she replies.

“Then I have a heavy flogger you might enjoy. It weighs over five pounds and the falls are made of thick cow-hide suede.”

“Sounds amazing. Definitely a hell, yes to that!” She replies giddily.

“Good. Good. And where would you like to be flogged?”

“Upper back, ass, and thighs.”

“By thighs do you mean hamstrings or quadriceps?”

“Both.”

Wrath smiles. “Any hard limits, injuries, or areas you want me to avoid?”

“Obviously avoid my lower back, my spine, kidneys, and the back of my knees. Other than that, I have no injuries.”

“Any medical conditions at all I should know about?”

“Nope. I’m as healthy as a horse.”

“Hard limits?”

“I’ll get to my hard limits when we discuss the rough sex part.”

“Okay then. Let’s talk about sex.”

“My hard limits are no face smacking. No skat, watersports, or verbal degradation. Ass smacking and spanking is all good. Choking is fine, but carotid chokes only. Do not compress my windpipe. Biting is good, but no drawing blood. No scratching. Hair-pulling is good, but make sure you grab close to my scalp. Do not pull my hair by the ends. Like I said, I am good with anal, but use lots of lube.”

“All good there. I have plenty of lube,” Wrath says as his grin widens.

“And I like to be face-fucked, but if I tap your thigh like this, that means pause a moment. I need to catch my breath. I’ll nod my head when I’m ready for you to resume. And you can cum on my face, but not in my mouth. When you are about to cum, just tap the top of my head. And it goes without saying that condoms are a must.”

“Of course. Shall we exchange STI test results?” Wrath says, pulling up his results on his phone.

If you have never negotiated a scene before, this might seem like a lot. If you’re part of the kink community, you will probably notice a lot that was left out. I abbreviated this deliberately to make it flow better and keep it sexy. It isn’t meant to be a step-by-step how-to on negotiation, but an example of how a negotiation scene might be constructed in a book or movie.

Was this sexy? Can you see how a negotiation could be hot as fuck? Or did you find it too cold and clinical? Did agreeing to everything ahead of time take the mystery and excitement out of it for you? Or did it raise the anticipation? How would you write a scene for a romance novel, an erotica novel, or a movie with BDSM themes where consent was explicitly discussed, and nothing was assumed or implied? How would you keep it hot and sexy while also making sure it was clear to the reader or audience that everything was thoroughly and mutually agreed upon and consented to? Or do you believe it can’t be done?