Implied consent is when a person’s actions are taken to indicate their consent. This is risky and more likely to result in consent violations than explicit consent, though it does have its place.

For example, if you choose to walk into a cupcake shop, you are implying that you consent to seeing cupcakes on display. You are also implying that you consent to seeing cupcakes being made, sold, and even eaten by other customers in the shop. If you were to see someone messily eating a cupcake in a way that made you feel uncomfortable, you would be well within your rights to leave the cupcake shop to avoid seeing such things. However, your consent was not violated; you implied that you were okay with seeing cupcakes, and the activities that are associated with them, by choosing to walk into the cupcake shop. If you were to walk into the cupcake shop and see two people engaging in a sexual act in the back corner, your implied consent would be violated. Walking into a cupcake shop does not imply that you are interested in watching someone pierce a cupcake with their penis; that kind of activity is not usually expected in a bakery.

When going to a kink event or party it is expected that the event will have published rules about what is and is not permitted at that event or venue, AND for all attendees to have read and to abide by those rules. Therefore, by choosing to attend that event, you are implicitly consenting to seeing any activity permitted by the rules.

This does NOT mean that by attending an event in such a space you are implicitly consenting to engage in any of those activities yourself. When it comes to any person’s bodily autonomy, rely on explicit consent, not implicit. No person at that event should attempt to do anything with or to you without your explicit, authentic consent. Nor can you do anything with or to another person at that event without first getting their explicit consent. Just ask.