Consent may be withdrawn at any time before or during an activity. If consent is withdrawn, all activity must stop immediately.

Consent may not be withdrawn after the activity has ended.

Consent Violation:

• Something is done to you that you did not explicitly and authentically agree to doing.
• You said to stop doing something that you had previously consented to and your statement was ignored.
• An activity that you previously consented to is done at a time when you did not consent to it.
• Someone does something with you that you had consented to doing with a person other than them.

Not a Consent Violation:

• If you explicitly and authentically consent to a specific thing, that thing is done to/with you and you feel badly afterwards, your consent was not violated. It may be that you regret your decision. You learned something new about yourself and it is your responsibility to move forward with that knowledge.
• There are also some things that cannot be controlled, even by the most conscientious Tops. If, for example, a Rope Bottom requests that no rope marks be left behind after a rope scene, a Rope Top may not be able to prevent that from happening entirely. This is why RACK is a useful consent model to follow. Clarifying that risks can be mitigated, but not completely prevented when engaging in these activities, is a critical part of the negotiation process. In this case, if the Bottom were to consent to a rope scene knowing that rope marks were a risk, their consent would not be violated if they walked away with a few marks despite the Top’s best efforts.

Consent Covers Actions Taken, Not Outcomes

It is important to understand that consent covers actions that are taken, not the outcomes. A person can control their actions, they cannot always control the outcome. Sometimes negative things happen despite everyone’s best intentions and efforts.

An example:

During your negotiations for your first spanking scene, you tell your Top that you don’t want to get bruised. Your Top states that they understand and will take it step by step so you can feel each level and give them feedback. They start light and you love it. You ask them to go a little heavier and they do. You love that. They ask if you want to feel a slightly heavier impact, and you do. Your Top tells you that they could go much harder, but that they are going to stop here because this is your first time and they want to keep things relatively light until you both learn how your body reacts. You have a warm, satisfied feeling. The next morning you look at yourself in the mirror and see a few light bruises. You are surprised; you didn’t think that you had been hit hard enough to bruise. You said you did not want to be bruised, but you were.

Unless there are other circumstances involved, this would not normally be considered a consent violation. Everyone was doing their best, communication was good, but there was an unfortunate outcome. Both you and the Top can learn from it that your skin is more sensitive to bruising than average and you can take that knowledge with you into future planning.