As tens of thousands of Irish people flocked to cinemas here to see the film version of the mega best-selling BDSM novel, Fifty Shades of Grey, more and more grim and disturbing details emerged during the Graham Dwyer murder trial. Central to the case was the ‘master and slave’ relationship between Dwyer and the murdered woman, Elaine O’Hara.

The sexual relationship in the film may have made many people feel decidedly uncomfortable, but Fifty Shades was generally regarded as escapist fantasy, a sort of Mills & Boons for a sexually liberated era — a romance between a billionaire and a young woman, but with whips, chains and a designer dungeon.
The trial painted a very different picture of a BDSM relationship. Elaine O’Hara was an emotionally and psychologically fragile woman, who had been targeted and murdered by a predator whose desire to rape and kill seemed completely at odds with his daily life as an apparently upstanding member of the middle classes: a husband a father and a professional.
In truth, however, if the film and the trial have anything in common, it is that neither are portraits of BDSM relationships that most kinksters would recognise.

MUTUAL PLEASURE
To outsiders, BDSM — bondage and discipline/dominance and submission or sado-masochism — may seem like physical abuse, but for practitioners it is a lifestyle that allows them to test the limits of their sexuality in a safe environment. The ethos of a healthy BDSM relationship is ‘safe, sane and consensual’ – or a variant on that theme.
“That’s the starting point. ‘Safe, sane and consensual’ is a framework for people to explore their sexuality,” explains Fig, founder of Nimhneach, Ireland’s fetish club. “Everything you do has to be done in safety. Sane is a nebulous word, but if you know someone else who is aware of your kink they could say, ‘Yes, that sounds reasonable’ or ‘That sounds crazy’. Consensual is the most important part. Everyone has to agree the boundaries, limits and safe words. Obtaining consent can be a longwinded process because you have to have knowledge about yourself and what you might like, so there’s self-awareness, and open communication.”
In BDSM relationships, all physical intimacy is pre-negotiated. The submissive sets the limits, and he or she needs to engage in honest and mature communication with a partner, for the session or relationship to work.
“Even with open communication, sometimes something may go wrong,” Fig says. “Because of that, you need to be empathetic to your partner during a session. If you pick up triggers or land mines, as I like to call them, you terminate the session. You need to stop, talk your way through these things, and renegotiate. A cuddle and a cup of tea would be very useful. You always need to conduct yourself in an honourable manner, even though you may be whipping somebody.”
With the stress on consent and mutual pleasure, BDSM relationships are not that different to any other sexual relationship. However, given that the particular kink can involve physical extremes, and because discretion is a necessary part of the scene, it could seem an attractive environment to predators.
“Graham Dwyer was a predator who found and isolated a very vulnerable person,” Fig says. “He was hanging around the BDSM scene for a long time but he was not part of the kink community. To the best of our knowledge he was never at Nimhneach and neither was Elaine. But he is not the first person to go hunting in the kink community and he won’t be the last either. The S&M community has to have discretion because of the ramifications of being outed, and predators take advantage of that.”

KINK COMMUNITY
The control structures of our society allow predators to flourish, explains Fig, and kinksters are caught in a Catch-22. A more open and transparent community would make it harder for predators to operate; but being outed as a kinkster can have serious professional consequences, particularly for those working with children or in positions of trust.
“People have huge misconceptions about what S&M is. Either kink is in you or it’s not; if it’s not, you have a very hard time understanding what a kinkster is. All sorts of experts have been trotted out since the trial, but they are talking from the criminal perspective, and that’s not really the deal.
“Misconceptions get built into power structures,” he adds. “If you’re this way, or you’re that way, then you must be a murderer or a child molester, but it’s faulty logic. Because there are ramifications, discretion is necessary – which provides an environment where predators can operate. There needs to be an openness amongst the kink community, but it would help if you could say you are a kinkster and that this would have zero ramifications.”
Although the community needs to be discreet, there are public events such as club nights at Nimhneach and “munches” — meet-ups at bars or restaurants where kinksters can get to know one another. Being part of a community is useful in terms of meeting like-minded others; and it helps the scene to self-regulate as well.
“If you get a group of people together who all have kinky relationships, information passes and predators will be more easily found out. In staying safe, you need to have a sense of perspective for what is safe. If you are part of a community you can get that perspective and you also get an idea about whether somebody is safe or not,” he says.
Although Fig could certainly be seen as a leader in Ireland’s BDSM community, he believes group consensus is a more important than the opinions of any one individual.
“The very clever predators can become close to leaders or take over a leader’s position, so no, leaders can’t always be trusted,” he says. “Group consensus about what’s sane is important. That’s why you need to talk about stuff and have open communication, not only with your partner but with trusted friends. If you have a kinky streak you may not have any friends who share that: that’s why the community is important. But it’s not a guarantee. A predator may not raise any flags initially, but typically speaking they make themselves known through talk and interactions. Once that has been brought to a moderator’s attention, they can take action, by excluding them from the group.”

SIGNS OF ABUSE
An example of this would be Dwyer’s fascination with knives and stabbing, which explains Fig, would not be seen as either safe or sane by group consensus.
“If you want to stab somebody, you’ve got a problem,” Fig says. “Knife-play is generally drawing patterns on somebody’s skin. At most you may be scoring the skin, but anything more than a millimetre is considered off the scale.”
Predators isolate their victims, either physically or psychologically or both. That’s true of rapists, of motional or physical abusers, and of abusers using BDSM as a cover for criminality alike.
“Smart predators smile nicely, claim knowledge, and once they have isolated their victims, they will start skewing their perspective. Newbies often get swept up when they first come to S&M. I’ve seen this time and time again. Somebody new comes into the kink world and they are overwhelmed by the sense of freedom and understanding they experience from the community.
“But because they are newbies, a predator can swoop in, take them out of the community, isolate them, feed them bullshit and warp their perspective. There are Graham Dwyers out there; there are other Elaine O’Haras out there. If you are with a community of people, that can help to protect you. But the best part of anyone’s arsenal is recognising signs of abuse; and sometimes the best way out of an abusive relationship is by having someone or a community to talk to. Unfortunately, Elaine O’Hara had nobody to turn to.”