By Bernadette Marie Calafell, Dr. B
Films like 50 Shades of Grey (2015), and more recently, Pillion (2025), have given audiences a view into the worlds of kink and BDSM. Increasingly, kink continues to become more mainstream through shows like Euphoria that engage in what communications professor Allison Rowland terms “kinkwashing” or the “appropriation of BDSM and kink discourses and practices in problematic ways.”
Perhaps unbeknownst to some in Eugene, we live in close proximity to one of the most kink friendly cities in the United States: Portland, a city that annually hosts Kink Week, for example. Given this proximity, Eugene Weekly’s recent coverage of kink venues and activities such as Dex Ranch and Kinky Bingo, and the increasing presence of kink in popular culture, a check-in on kink and consent would be appropriate. As a kink educator who teaches in the Eugene community, I felt it important to add my voice to the conversation.
Our tastes, understandings and orientation as society toward kink certainly shift over time with cultural mores and values; however, we can know that “kink,” according to forensic sexologist Stefani Goerlich and sex therapist Elyssa Helfer, refers to any “sexual or relational practice that is nonnormative for its place and time.”
Educator and writer Lee Harrington highlights elements such as role-play, voyeurism, power exchange, leather, non-monogamy and BDSM as aspects of kink.
What has remained steadfast in kink is the importance of enthusiastic consent, whether that is expressed verbally and nonverbally. Frameworks for consent and safety have evolved over the years from “safe, sane and consensual” (SSC) to “risk aware consensual kink” (RACK).
However, it’s more than a slogan that governs kink and its ethical practitioners. Specific practices have been put into place to ensure that kink remains safe, through processes like vetting of play partners and venues, the use of dungeon monitors in play spaces and extensive negotiation built on consent.
For those new to the kink community or scene, it would be wise to look for these green flags in potential play partners or venues. Risk aware consensual kink requires vetting, which is dependent on healthy communication that not only acknowledges the power dynamics being negotiated in play or in scenes, but also how power informs the identities that we bring with us.
Furthermore, sites like FetLife.com can offer firsthand accounts of venues, their practices, including the use of dungeon monitors and history of handling or not handling consent violations, and in many cases stories that reveal hidden histories beyond what may be easily apparent.
Newcomers to the community should not only talk with folks who have been involved in the local kink scene for some time, but also visit FetLife for up and coming events such as munches to meet others with alike interests, as well as read about various venues and those that run them.
What remains most important however is consent, and how it is upheld in play spaces. Through the use of safe words, such as red, yellow and green, kinksters communicate with intention and clarity in scenes in which consent exists as the bedrock.
As you venture out in the community, it would be wise to ask, how does this venue honor and support a healthy environment for consent? What are the repercussions for consent violations? What is the reputation of the venue and its owner(s) when it comes to consent? Because at the end of the day, without consent you’re just enabling harm.
Bernadette Marie Calafell, Ph.D., also known as Dr. B, runs the Patreon ChingonaKinkPhD, as well as teaches classes on various topics in kink locally and virtually.