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Consensual non-consent has been called one of the darkest things you can do in BDSM. I mean, how can someone say no, mean no in that moment, and still actually want you to keep going? Well, CNC plays with the one role in kink that is never supposed to break, which is exactly why we need to talk about it. So let's dive in into the complicated world of consensual non-consent. Welcome to the Dom Sub-Living podcast. Hey, it's Alessandra, and my Dom is allowed to force me to do things I don't want to do. I agreed to that ahead of time, and if that sounds like a contradiction, that's exactly why people call consensual nonconsent the darkest kink in BDSM. So is it? Is CNC really the darkest thing we do in this lifestyle? Or is that just a scary label that we just slap on something we don't fully understand? Well, I've been practicing this for years, and I still think about that question sometimes. But by the end of this episode, you're going to have a real-world answer and examples. And here's everything we are going to cover what consensual non-consent actually is in plain language, why it messes with people's heads more than almost any other kink out there, how it's different from free use and blanket consent, because people mix those up constantly and it causes a lot of confusion. We're going to talk about what safety actually looks like here, since the word consent is right there in the name, and somehow people still get that part wrong. And we're going to talk about what happens to your body and your brain after a CNC scene, because that part surprises almost everyone the first time it happens to them. I know it did for me and my DOM, and I'm actually going to be sharing a story about that. But let's start with the basic definition because I want us to be on the same page before we go any farther. Consensual non-consent or CNC is a pre-agreed scenario where the submissive performs or is forced to do something non-consensual, even though they said yes to it beforehand. So we're talking about things like forced intimacy play, being restrained against your will, being force-fed something even, being made to do a punishment you clearly don't want in the moment. The specific act isn't really the point here. The point is that somewhere earlier outside of the scene, like full and clear consent was given for all of it. I always explain it with this illustration because I think it clicks for people almost every time I say it. But think about a boxer stepping into the ring. They agree to the fight, they agree to the rules, and going in, they know there's a real chance they get hit in the face, that they will get hurt, and maybe they are severely injured, and even heaven forbid, they lose the match. Now, none of that is something they actually want to happen. In fact, the entire time they're in the ring, they're actually, you know, trying to actively try to stop that from happening to them. But when it does happen, like when they take a hit they never wanted, they still consented to being in that ring in the first place. That's CNC in a nutshell. Like you can consent to something that's happening, even while every part of you in the moment is actively trying to fight it and avoid it. And it's not always this intense, dramatic thing that you're probably picturing either. So CNC can happen in smaller and even non-kinky ways, too. It can be something like consenting to a punishment as a submissive for something you don't like. Like, for example, having to eat a food you do not like. For for me, that would be mushrooms, like don't tell my dom and give him any ideas. But the point is that's still consensual non-consent. It's not always a BDSM scene, like straight out of a movie. Sometimes it's just something basic and random, but you agree to it in advance. Here's my own definition of it that I kind of developed along the way. And, you know, I bring this up every time I have a conversation about CNC. But it's the phrase, I like it even when I don't like it, or I want it even when I don't want it. That idea used to confuse me before I actually started living it. Like some people will say consensual non-consent is a type of role play. And for some people it can be, but for other people, like me, this isn't roleplay. I'm I'm not performing for effect or for a hotter scene. I genuinely do not want the thing happening to me in that moment. And my DOM is allowed to make it happen anyway, because I agreed to that outside the scene when I had a completely clear head and was fully able to say no if I meant it. So, why do people call this the darkest kink in the entire community? Well, here's my theory. If you've spent any real time in BDSM spaces, you already know that consent is the thing we protect the most, like above everything else. It's the entire foundation, this whole world is built on. We say things like safe saying consensual or risk-aware consensual kink. Every framework we use puts consent like right, front, and center, because without it, this isn't kink anymore. It's just abuse. But then here comes CNC, like saying it's okay to do things that are non-consensual as long as the person agreed to it beforehand. On paper, that kind of just sounds like a contradiction. It kind of just sounds like we built this entire safety structure and then just completely like pulled the rug out from under it like it's nothing. But it's not a contradiction. And here's the important distinction that I think you need to get right. The consent doesn't disappear anywhere. It just kind of like moves. And that's how I like to view it. Like it happened earlier, outside the heat of the moment, like when both people were calm and completely clear-headed about what they wanted. But CNC doesn't remove consent from the equation at all. It just like relocates it to a different point in time. Like I had a student in one of my programs, and they told me something that kind of just stuck with me for a long time. She said the first time she tried CNC with her partner, like she genuinely panicked, like mid-seen. Like, even though she asked for it herself, like even though she wanted it more than almost anything else. But her brain and her body were just completely out of sync with each other. Like her mind knew, like without a doubt, that she was safe. Her body, like, absolutely did not get that memo though. And that gap between what you know and what you feel in your body, that's where Kink messes with people more than others. Now, here's something I haven't told you yet, and it's the part that kind of just trips up almost everyone who's new to this, but it's not actually the scene itself that's the hardest part of CNC. It's what happens right after. And I'll get to that in a little bit because it definitely caught me off guard the first time it happened to me, and nobody had warned me about it. But before we get to that, let's clear up some confusion because CNC gets lumped in with a few other things that are not the same. And mixing them up just leads to a lot of misunderstandings in the BDSM community. So free use. I did a whole separate episode on free use and blanket consent. So I won't go into the whole thing here. But the short version is this. So free use is about availability. It's agreeing that your partner can use you whenever they want, like without having to ask each time beforehand. You can have free use about acts that you enjoy. But CNC is about like resistance and things you don't like. It's not just like you can have me anytime. It's you can have me even when I'm actively saying no in the moment itself and with things that I don't even like. Like those are two very different agreements, like even though people mix them up constantly online all the time. I also want to address something else because I hear it constantly, especially from men in this community. But a lot of guys get nervous even bringing this up. And it's not because they don't want it. It's because of how maybe they were raised or what society has drilled into their head about how a man is supposed to act, like especially toward women. There's this fear that even wanting to explore force or resistance kind of just makes you a bad person somehow. Then there's the flip side, if you're a woman who's submissive and enjoys this, then you're somehow supporting misogyny and the patriarchy and you're betraying feminism. So I want to be really clear about this. Consensual non-consent has nothing to do with gender, and it never has. Like you can practice it in any role, regardless of your gender or your partner's gender. Wanting to explore this doesn't say anything dark about who you are as a person. It just says you're curious about a very human part of desire that most of us were just taught to be ashamed of. Because here's a question I get asked all the time: like, am I normal for wanting this? And the honest answer is yes. Like fantasies involving force and resistance are like super common, like across all genders, across all relationship styles, like even vanilla ones. And wanting this doesn't mean anything is wrong with you or your psychology. It doesn't mean you or your partner actually wants to be assaulted by someone, and it doesn't mean the partner who's wanting to be the inflictor is a dangerous or evil person. It just means you're human and human desires are a lot more complicated than most of us were taught growing up. In fact, when researchers have actually surveyed people about this, more than half have reported having had some kind of forced fantasy at one point in their lives. That doesn't make it universal, and it definitely doesn't make it required if you're a Dom or sub, but it should take some of the shame out of the conversation if you've ever thought about it yourself. Okay, now let's talk about why anyone would even want this, though. That's probably the real question sitting in your head right now. Like, why would a sub, someone who's already given their submission freely, like still say no to something in the moment? Well, because subs are not robots. They're they're not compliance machines, like with an on and off switch. They have feelings, they have moods, and they have days where they don't want what they normally want. And CNC just gives room for all of that to exist while still honoring the deeper agreement underneath it all. And for some people, it's about healing. Like I've talked to survivors of real assault who were able to find something almost therapeutic in acting it out, you know, on their own terms with someone they trust completely, knowing like they hold full control to end it the second they need to. Now that's not everyone's reason, and it never has to be yours, but I don't want to minimize what that can be for some people. And then for other people, it's a lot simpler than that. It's just sadistic or masochistic. Like one partner loves having their partner resist and not like it, and the other partner loves being the one that has, you know, this being inflicted on them. Neither role is more valid than the other one. But let's talk safety now, because consent is literally in the name of this kink. So it should be like one of the safest things we do, but in practice, this is exactly where people get it wrong. Like a lot of people assume that because you agreed to ignore no or stop during a scene, that safe words kind of just go out the window, too. Well, they don't have to. A safe word is just a completely different communication channel than the no or stop that you agreed to override ahead of time. And trust has to run both directions here, not just one. We usually talk about this as the sub trusting the DOM, but the DOM has to trust the sub just as much, maybe even more, because legally and practically, no means no, no matter what dynamic you're in or what's written in any agreement between the two of you. A DOM has to be completely certain that the sub is willing, even while the sub is yelling or crying or physically fighting back against what's happening. So that's why I usually only recommend that you enjoy this type of play with someone you've known for months or even years and have built up trust and good communication with. Now, some couples doing CNC are in total power exchange relationships, and they do choose to remove, you know, safe words in certain specific situations, like maybe during punishments that they've already discussed and you know at length beforehand. That's a real thing that some people genuinely do. But that's an advanced, deliberate choice made after a ton of trust and communication is already in place. And again, that's usually built over years of playing together, like not just weeks. That is absolutely not where you start. But here's what I'd actually recommend if you want to try this kink yourself. So talk about it outside the bedroom first, like completely outside of any BDSM contacts or headspace. Like just get specific about what's on the table and what's completely off of it. And put it in writing if you can, because things get fuzzy under pressure and under adrenaline. And having it written down just kind of removes a lot of the guesswork later for both of you. I actually built a free BDSM contract specifically for these types of dynamics, and you can grab it at domsubliving.com/slash CNC. It's the exact framework me and my DOM personally use to lay all of this out, you know, before anything ever happens between us. The link is in the description too, so you can grab it there. But now here's that story I promised you earlier. Um, the part after the scene. This is what almost nobody talks about when they talk about CNC. And it's the part that took me the longest to understand about myself. So, one time after our hardest CNC scene ever, my body reacted like something real just happened to it. And in a way, it physically did. The forceful part was real, even though I had consented to it beforehand with my long-term husband. But after we were done, my husband tried to hold me and cuddle with me and soothe me. And I actually violently freaked out and pushed him away and started kind of attacking him. He wasn't prepared for that response. So he just kind of freaked out himself and said, like, what's wrong? I thought you wanted this. And in that moment, like, I couldn't really explain what was going on. I just knew that my body, it felt like something real had happened because it did. Um, you know, it's really hard to explain that. Like my mind knew it was consensual, but my body didn't. Like my nervous system just kind of needed a minute to catch up with what my brain already knew, which was that I was completely safe. But he in that moment felt like a monster. But once I was able to calm down, we later talked about it. And now he knows that in those really hardcore CNC scenes, that he just needs to give me space and like not even touch me or like even hold my hand because I just might have a you know huge strong reaction. So instead, now he just gives me some like quiet space. He stays like near me in the room to make sure I'm safe, and he just kind of waits till I'm able to have a logical conversation again. This is sometimes called subdrop, and it's it's not unique to CNC specifically, but CNC tends to hit it harder because the body genuinely doesn't always know the difference between, you know, this was agreed to and this actually happened to me right now. One of my other students described it almost exactly the same way. You know, she said that she'd get just like irrationally angry at her partner for, you know, 10 or 15 minutes after a scene, even though like she'd ask for exactly what had happened to her. That's that's not a sign something went wrong between you. That that's just what it looks like when your body is still catching up to what your mind already understands. So, how do you like prevent this or combat this? Well, if you're going to explore CNC, like please build aftercare into the plan before you ever start the scene, like not after. Don't wing it and hope it works out. Like, talk about what you each need afterward, whether that's space or physical touch or silence, or just you know, having the the other person just sitting nearby without saying anything at all. That conversation is just as important as the scene itself. So, like, maybe even more so. So, definitely have that conversation. There's also something almost nobody brings up until it's kind of already too late. And that's the legal side of this. So, consent laws are are not identical everywhere you go, and it not only depends on what country you're in, but also what state you're in. What's understood as clearly consensual in one place might get interpreted a completely different way somewhere else. I'm not here to give you legal advice on this episode, but I am telling you to actually look into where you live before you assume everything you agreed to privately is automatically protected under law if something ever went wrong. If you're a member of our All Access Pass, you can actually check out the training you have access to in your dashboard called Kink and the Law, which goes into more of this and how to stay legal and protect yourself. So definitely check that out if you're a member. But okay, say you're ready to actually try consensual non-consent yourself. Where do you start? Well, I'm going to share some of the ways you can actually do this. And they range from mild all the way to intense. So on the lighter end, you can enforce a punishment your partner like genuinely doesn't want in the moment and don't back off just because they push back a little. Since you know, that pushback is actually, you know, the entire point of doing this. If you need ideas for punishments, just go to domsubliving.comslash punish, and there's a List of 30 different punishment ideas there to get you started. But a step up from that is to, you know, use things like rope to restrain your partner. So the physical resistance becomes part of the scene itself, you know, not just, you know, an obstacle that you have to get past. If you want to go further than that, um, one partner can even dress up as an attacker for a role play scenario. Though I always kind of recommend that at least part of the face is visible if you're wearing a mask. That way there's zero confusion in either of your minds about who this actually is underneath it. There's also something called somnophilia, which is when one partner performs agreed-upon acts on the other while they're asleep or pretending to be asleep. That one's definitely not for everyone, but my Dom and I have played with it before. And obviously, consent for that is, you know, has to be worked out completely in advance since there's no real in the moment check-in possible once someone's actually asleep. You have to trust each other completely before you even try to attempt that one. Because, you know, by definition, one of you is fully unable to consent in real time. So there's a lot of legal repercussions there. If you want to bring any of this up with your partner for the first time, don't do it mid-sene. Like bring it up like during a completely normal, non-intimate moment. So like a car ride or a walk, and just get really curious about what they've, you know, thought about doing before, like in their fantasies. You don't have to commit to anything the first time that you talk about it. You're just kind of opening the door. And if your partner is the one who brought this up and you're the one feeling unsure, that's completely okay too. You don't owe anyone like an immediate yes just because they were brave enough to talk about it out loud. But ask questions, ask what specifically appeals to them about it and what it would actually look like in practice. I think a lot of the fear around CNC comes from picturing the most extreme version of it possible. When in reality, most couples who explore this start like incredibly small and build slowly over time, like sometimes, you know, months or even years. But let's come back to the question I opened this whole episode with. Is CNC actually BDSM's darkest kink? I don't think dark is really the right word for it anymore. Now that we've kind of gone through this all together, I think it's just the kink that asks the most out of you, like out of nearly everything else in this lifestyle. It asks for the most trust and the most communication and the most honesty about what you actually want versus what you think you're supposed to want. It looks dark from the outside because it plays with the exact thing we protect the most in this entire community, which is consent. But from the inside, when it's done with real communication and safe words and aftercare, I think it's actually one of the deepest expressions of trust that two people can build together. Because think about it, you're handing someone the ability to keep going even after you've said stop. And you're trusting them completely to only use that power the way you agreed to beforehand. That's not something you hand to just anyone. It's it's something you build toward slowly with someone who's earned it. If any of this resonated with you at all, go grab that free BDSM contract at domsubliving.com slash CNC to get started. The link is in the description too. And I'd love to know, are you into CNC? Is it a hard no for you? Or are you somewhere in between? Let me know in the comments or reach out to me on social media or in our community at domsubliving.comslash community. I can't wait to hear what you think. And until next time, keep embracing your power and pleasure through Dom Subliving.