Are Sexual Risk Orders a Threat to BDSM?

As you may have seen in recent news, a man named John O’Neill who was recently acquitted of rape by a jury in a trial in York was subsequently served with a so-called Sexual Risk Order after the Judge said that, despite the acquittal, he considered Mr O’Neill to be “dangerous”.

The requirements of this order are that Mr O’Neill must give Police 24 hours notice of his intent to have any form of sexual contact with a woman. He must give them the woman’s name, address and date of birth and the Police will then go to visit the woman and inform the woman of the Order. He is also forbidden to use internet-enabled device which cannot be checked by the Police later.

The reason for this is that John O’Neill was interested in BDSM and had visited Fetish Clubs as well as having had consensual “rape” fantasies (which are not uncommon in BDSM relationships) but which were represented in court as some sort of confession.

Frankly this is utterly mind-boggling. It seems that, despite the increasingly widespread knowledge of BDSM and related activities in popular culture with the advent of 50 Shades of Grey and other such things, there is still a lot of ignorance of what consenting adults may engage in and a very strong puritan ethos of sexual orthodoxy whereby anyone who engages in practices which are “out of the ordinary” is seen as dangerous and a risk to others.

Sexual Risk Orders are “Sour Grapes”?

After Mr O’Neill was acquitted by the Jury, the Judge, Simon Bourne-Arton, QC, turned to the Prosecutor and said “please could you inform the authorities that although this man has been acquitted, it is my judgment he is a very dangerous individual. ”

Based on this, the Police applied for and got the Sexual Risk Order applied by Northallerton Magistrates Court which, as described above, is so broadly worded, that even kissing or sexually explicit conversation could breach it.

In our opinion, this looks like an act of spite and sour grapes on the part of the Police because they were defeated in court, but wanted to use this as a consolation prize to make up for their loss.

Sexual Risk Orders and BDSM

Given the lack of understanding of consensual BDSM activities it seems that, once again, those whose sexuality deviates from the “norm” are under threat again.

When interviewed on the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire programme Mr O’Neill clearly stated his knowledge of safe words and signals and how a consensual “rape” fantasy differed from an actual assault, yet when he was interviewed by a doctor prior to his case, his descriptions of these fantasies was simply reported as “rape” which is a gross mis-representation of the facts.

Many women have had fantasies of being “taken against their will”, indeed, one of the reasons that Rudolph Valentino was so popular with women in his films such as the Sheikh of Araby was that they could enjoy the idea of being taken away to his tent and him having his way with them, yet, because they were being “forced” into it, they could maintain their idea of themselves being virtuous women.

Similarly, in Nancy Friday’s books of collected women’s fantasies such as My Secret Garden and Women on Top, there are whole sections where the contributors express their desires to be “raped”, but, as with all such things, it’s actually in a way that the woman herself has control over.

Now, however, with this SRO, we get into the realms of Thought Crime where even just thinking about something is enough for the authorities to put restrictions on someone’s activities and a Police State where a person who is considered “dangerous” is subject to monitoring or control even when they have committed no crime.

The danger for people into BDSM is that, due to the ignorance (either actual or wilful) on the part of the authorities about the nature of alternative sexualities, we could see more people being served with these Sexual Risk Orders to stop them from doing something which is “not normal”.

Even worse, in the case of eg an acrimonious divorce, one partner could use this as a way of getting revenge on their ex-partner by making exaggerated or false accusations to try to get them declared “dangerous” and thus give themselves an advantage in proceedings.

It seems to us that Orders such as these are another example of a creeping control freak, Nanny State mentality amongst our political leaders so that anyone who steps outside the bounds of what they consider to be “proper” behaviour can be penalised just for being different.

Are Sexual Risk Orders an Infringement of Liberty?

Do you agree that this Sexual Risk Order is an infringement of liberty? Should someone be subject to such an order simply for engaging in practices which don’t fit with current sexual orthodoxy?

Let us know your thoughts in the comments…