When it comes to sex, asking for what you want – especially if moving through the world as a woman – is often considered unromantic, and advocating for what you need is often seen as pushy. Explicit discussions of your boundaries or desires may not be explicitly taboo, but the mainstream culture reflects the idea that sex is a commodity that women possess and men require access to.

It’s a culture in which it is expected that men ask for sex, and equally expected that women acquiesce, and in which men push sexual boundaries until they hear “no” rather than asking about specifics in advance and respecting the other person’s answer.

There is no small irony that ex-CBC broadcaster Jian Ghomeshi cited “50 Shades of Grey” as an example of consensual BDSM between informed adults … a story that has been heavily critiqued for its abusive storyline by the BDSM community itself. As an activist who has written extensively about consent and abuse in alternative communities, I found myself recognizing similar patterns in the allegations against Ghomeshi as in allegations against some BDSM community leaders who have been accused of assaulting their submissives.

A media diet too rich on long gazes and sex that happens between new lovers without a word spoken spoiled us for the reality that communication before and during sexual intimacy can both minimize the likelihood of hurting another person – which should be a desire as base as any other – and even enhance the experience of sex. Consent is seen by BDSMers and vanilla folk alike as boring, plebian, with the sought-after relationship goal being to “just have chemistry”.

We are then encouraged to buy into the falsehood that men can read minds and that they know what women “really” want or, at the very least, that they know what’s best for us. We are taught to believe that it’s unfeminine or slutty – or even hurtful to men – for women to either delineate what they want or say the simple no. Men are also taught that if they hear “no”, it might be a “yes” if they just try, try again, a standard that leaves men believing that, if they just ask enough times they’ll succeed. It’s no surprise, then, that when women are trained not to speak, and men are trained not to ask, wires get crossed … and even less of a surprise that abusive people can leverage this to get what they want.

It’s a dangerous deceit that is then deliberately used against women in particular – as we see over and over again when “miscommunication” is used by men to defend crossing women’s boundaries, from asking a woman an inappropriate question in an elevator all the way to sexual and physical assault. (Though, we should not forget that sometimes, people die for saying no to men.)

This is why, when I see a situation – like the case of Ghomeshi – in which there are accusations of non-consent, I look at how the accused responds to being named, and at his or her track record. (In his case, he posted a long piece on Facebook blaming a supposedly vindictive ex-girlfriend, and there are at least three women who told the Toronto Star similar stories of physical assault.)

I’ve learned that abusive people are generally serial abusers, sometimes across multiple communities and using multiple tactics. Additionally, at least in my experience with consent activism (particularly around BDSM practitioners), the more defensive the accused is, the more likely it’s not a one-off incident. People who have genuinely made mistakes in our community are more likely to ask questions, feel concerned for the people they hurt, and to have ideas on what they could do differently. Abusive people tend to try to invalidate and silence those they’ve abused, and they ask their friends and colleagues to support them without question or critique. Those group dynamics – which are at play in almost every community – are what keeps toxic people free to continue their behaviours without confrontation or expectation of accountability. We consider it brave when someone like Owen Pallett speaks out about the allegations his friend Ghomeshi faces, rather than common decency.

Within BDSM communities, the typical silencing that abuse victims face can be exacerbated by the dynamics of some insular communities. When people are made to feel uncomfortable or unwilling to discuss their nonconsensual experiences, serial abusers tend to feel that they have license to continue their behavior. But when a dominant, for instance, reacts with shaming and name-calling to a past submissive saying that she or he felt violated, the dominant is leveraging the power dynamic of their sexual history to terrorize that submissive into remaining quiet.

And when an alternative community (particularly one revolving around sexual practices) is afraid of having their socializing spaces shut down because law enforcement could be called in to investigate non-consensual acts, we’ve seen time and again that some will protect themselves as best they can by stonewalling more thorough investigations. Such actions result in less safe communities, not safer ones – and ones that self-police through fear of being accused of “drama” rather than ones dedicated to inter- and intrapersonal growth.

In BDSM communities – like many others – your social value is often determined by your mastery of technique. Imagine, then, if that mastery on which we focused was communication skills, rather than how to tie someone up or spank them with a paddle. Imagine if we could show people how sexy communication really is - and teach it as mandatory, even if some people still think it’s not.

I have met too many submissives who have told me about experiences they had with their boundaries being pushed or their safewords ignored and who chalk it up to a learning experience. The BDSM community uses guidelines like “safe, sane, and consensual” without exploring what informed consent actually means in practice, particularly in the context of a dominant and submissive relationship. When engaging in a practice where “rough sex” can mean anything from “I like to hold my partner’s hands down” to “I like to punch my partner’s thighs til they bruise”, clear communication and not making assumptions is pretty vital.

Our community is uniquely positioned to serve as an example of how we can do deliciously evil things to each other sexually while still caring deeply about the consent and mutual desire of our partners, and yet we still have resistance around really dissecting and understanding consent. It’s high time we take up that responsibility and became an example to the rest of the world, rather than just serving as a mirror to society’s cultural toxicity.