BDSM and the law with attorney Tom and ex-cop Bob

Good. Hello, good evening. Hi. I hate the mix of whatever the person who has this mic before me. They clearly don't like their own voice, whereas me, I want all my voice. Fuck you, bitches. I want to hear me. I think I'm going to be thoroughly distracted. Why? Because, because, because, because, because. Because of the wonderful things he does? We're off to see, what? Because of these that are down there. That's awesome. You still need to get your face close to the mic. It is. It wasn't. You were all like this. Because I was talking like that. Sarah, listeners at home, realize that that sucks. Yes. Yes. Understood. See? See? It's educational. But hey, hey. Hey. Welcome to Intellectual Kink. What is up? I'm Insidious Muse. And I'm Service Slut. And we have people. We have people. We actually, here's one of the things that we do on our show here. We don't claim to be subject matter experts about many things. And when we want to discuss a subject about which, let's say we have, I don't know, insignificant to no knowledge, we like to get people that we would consider. We consider to be subject matter experts. So tonight, we have on two very special guests, which are going to be two different sides of the same coin. The topic being BDSM and the law. And we have on an attorney, Tom, and a former police officer in the Southern California area, Bob. Welcome, gentlemen. Hello. Good evening. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for having us. So the idea originally, we were just going to have the attorney on because, you know, who cares about the popo, right? Hey. I do. And then Nancy was like, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. By the way, she actually does that. And she said, we should have Bob on. We know Bob. Bob's our friend. Let's have Bob on. And I said, okay. Thank you, Nancy. No, you said, no, before you said, okay, you're like, why? What is she going to say? Actually, I did. I said, what is she going to say? I'm actually really glad we've got him on because as I'm going to discuss, the court of cop can be one of the most relevant issues that comes up actually in BDSM and the law. Yeah. And that's, and that's in this kind of scenario, in this kind of scenario, when we're dealing with BDSM practitioners. You know, there's things that we say this jokingly and in jest, you know, you can't consent to battery, which is ostensibly what we're doing. How do you know you can't? You're not a subject matter expert. Well, traditionally, traditionally in Anglo-American criminal law, you can't. I've read things in books and on the internet. Well, we'll talk about that on the air. We are on the air. I know. For fuck's sake. Anyway. Anyway. So the point is having these two different sides of the coin, I think is going to be fantastic. So let's start with, I don't know, anything. All right. I'll start. So there's this idea that, and I'm calling it an idea because I've received, you know, different feedback on this about, you know, whether or not you can actually consent to what we do, which in a name is assault. You know, I've heard people that are like, oh, no. That's, that's bullshit. You know, you, you can't consent, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I've also heard people that say, well, there's no law that exists where it says that you can't. I think there actually is, if I'm correct. Which is why I bring it up because, hey, we have subject matter experts. Right. I mean, am I correct that there's a law that says you can't beat somebody up? Well, that's the traditional interpretation of assault and battery in criminal law, both in Britain, where we get our criminal law through the common law from. In the United States, the majority rule has been that you cannot consent to an assault or battery. Now, there have been some narrow exceptions. And by the way, I just want to preface this by saying that anything I say should not be construed as legal advice. Right. Disclaimer at the end of my email. Please do get a lawyer if you are facing a legal question where this comes up. But there are narrow exceptions to the general rule. Things like sporting events, social events. Cases. Cases where there is not what's considered serious bodily injury. Okay. So like football players or boxing, MMA, they're allowed to beat each other up. Well, which is why we said it's not, you can't make that broad brush stroke and say you can't consent to battery because under two, I'm going to be real specific with terms here. So not only you guys understand, but the listeners understand. Under California law, and by the way, I need to preface it by saying I only know California law. So if you're in Nevada or listening. I'm not going to preface it by saying I only know California law. Some place else, this may not apply to you, but in California, what I'm saying is accurate. 240 of the California penal code is assault. What is assault? I take a swing at Nancy, but I miss. I've just assaulted her. Oh shit. I do that all the time and not just to Nancy. 242 of the California penal code is battery. Simple battery. Battery is a willful and unlawful use of force or violence. That's correct. I do that a lot too. However. An assault is the attempt. Well, if I assaulted somebody, then I did a shitty job. But think about what he just said. See, it's a willful and unlawful striking of somebody. All right. So again, if I say to my mistress, you know, it's perfectly acceptable to whip my ass. Is it really unlawful? It's willful, but is it unlawful? I've not only consented to it, I've asked her to do so. So that's where I'm, I would say that you may possibly have issues. Now I'll go even one step farther. We have a law in California, 273.5, which is. Wow. He nods like he knew it. Fuck. I do know it. Jesus. He should know it. He's a lawyer. All we know is 420 and 187. But 273.5 of the California penal code states that if you batter a sexual partner, you are guilty of a felony crime as opposed to 242, which is simple. It's a willful battery. It's willfully inflict a corporal injury, basically resulting in a traumatic condition and how that's typically interpreted. If you even have marks. Exactly. If you have even a slight. Really? Marks are considered a traumatic condition? Yes. So this is, this is the scenario I was thinking of before coming here. Think about this. So you're in an apartment and your mistress decides she's going to whip you and the neighbor calls the police going, I don't know what's going on over there. I hear all these noises and screams and you know, and the police come and you're tied to a St. Andrew's cross with all these whip marks. Cross your back. And the police say, do you guys have sex? Oh yeah. We have sex all the time when I'm not beating his ass. Prima facie evidence of a felony right there. Right there. You're under arrest for a felony crime. And what if you were just reenacting, you know, the story of Jesus? Have you had sex? Let me finish that. I get it. I get it. So you cannot have a serious conversation about shit. That much is obvious. Please let it be. So the thing is, I mean, they're, they, it's possible. Now, I mean, obviously if you have two cops that kind of get it, they're going to go, oh, all right, well, this is sex play. This isn't really the, there's another penal code section, by the way, which officers always should follow, which is penal code section four, which tells people, officers to follow the spirit of the law, not the letter of the law. So under the spirit of the law, if two people really got it and they're in this apartment, two cops, I mean, really got it. And they said, okay, you know, this is sex play. This is, nobody's really being battered here. They're against their will or anything like that. You know, they might turn a blind eye to it. Technically they're not supposed to because they're guilty then of a felony crime. There's a very good discussion actually on fed life and the BDSM and law group by a experienced police officer from the Bay area discussing this. He lays out very specifically what's going to happen if they show up at a DV felony DV investigation at your house and how they're going to view it. Now he's a gangster and he's coming to the conclusion that we determined this is consensual BDSM. You're good to go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. that show up and they're saying, hey, you know, the letter of the law says they have sex. This person has marks. This person inflicted those marks. You're under arrest, felony crime. Now, will it be filed on? I don't know. I mean, I'm not a lawyer and I'm not the judge, but the point is you might end up in jail. So that is something to consider, you know? So in that scenario, let's say whoever handled it poorly and somebody is therefore arrested and then they're going and they potentially are being indicted. What are the odds that they can feasibly just, you know, get off basically with a warning? I'm asking now the attorney, because they've said we are consensual partners in this and you have the partner there that's saying it was consensual. I mean, is that feasible or is that a slippery slope for abuse? I mean... Well, it's not so much getting let off with a warning. The question is whether or not they're going to file charges or not. And it should be pointed out the collateral consequences of even being arrested can be an issue. An arrest is a matter of public record. You know, there is a procedure here in California to quash any evidence of an arrest, but it's pretty significant. The question is, though, whether a prosecutor is actually going to file charges. Realistically, in most scenarios where everybody admits that this is a consensual BDSM encounter, it's unlikely in most jurisdictions in this state that a prosecutor is going to file charges, particularly because they just don't want a bad precedent. If a precedent was passed down, consent is a defense to assault, battery, domestic violence type crimes, then everybody charged with that would have a potential defense. But technically, as the law exists, the case, the current case law in California, it's a case called People v. Samuels from 1967. There's some terrible language in it, but basically it says that somebody can't consent to a battery. Now, we do have narrow exceptions for, this is just sort of the general common law for, you know, sporting or social activities, for cases where there's no risk of serious bodily injury or where a weapon is not used. That tends very often, though, to be a sliding scale that courts apply where they're going to express their approval or disapproval of a particular social activity. And thus far, the case law hasn't worked out really well for kink in most cases. Okay. So then, from both of your perspectives, what can someone do should that scenario happen? How do they handle it, not knowing the level of knowledge of the police officers that are inquiring? I mean, I would just say, you know, if it were me and I was with, you know, some mistress and the police showed up and I had marks, I would A, get right on the phone with the detectives involved, myself, and say, listen very carefully, I am not prosecuting. This was completely consensual. And, you know, if you insist on bringing it to the city or the district attorney, I'm going to call them and tell them, I'm not showing up. You're not going to be able to subpoena me. I'm not going. It's, you know, it's a wasted prosecution. Because the bottom line is, if there's, you know, kind of, we say, flippantly, no victim, no crime, you know, I mean, a lot of people decide they don't want to show up. And so what is the court going to do? Even though technically under that, the 273.5 rule, your sexual partner can say, no, no, no, no, I don't want them arrested. The police say, no, no, no, you don't understand. You're not arresting them. We are. So that happens all the time in domestic violence. Absolutely. The sheriff of San Francisco actually last year was prosecuted for domestic violence in a case where police did not want to pursue it. And it's, yeah, I mean, it's a statutory law. Is it not? That's what? It's a statutory law, right? Well, there's a whole series of laws that they passed largely after the O.J. Simpson case. Right. 273.5 is the actual penal code. But then there was a number of other provisions for studying domestic violence for enacting policies and law enforcement agencies and so forth. Yeah. And again, I mean, if you, you know, if I'm the one that's involved with this kind of thing, and I'm the one that's, you know, the quote unquote victim. I'm going to be saying, you know, I'm going to point out, you might want to read PC4, follow the spirit of the law here, not the blood of the law. I'm totally going to use that now. I'm just telling you, you know, I used to train young officers out of the academy, probationers. They don't even like really point that out in the academy, but I would point it out to my probationers saying, this is really what we're supposed to be doing here. You know, the letter of the law is great, but you have to use some common sense and not every case is black and white. And you, not, not just, we're not talking about this kind of stuff, but I mean, anything, you know, and don't just always focus on the letter of the law. There's a spirit of the law. There's a way to look at each case individually. You know, clearly there's, you know, a guy sticks a gun in your face and commits a robbery. Well, what's, what spirit of the law is there? The spirit of the law is he needs to go to jail, you know? So, I mean, the point is, you know, it's, it's, it's not loosey goosey. It's, it's, it's just using common sense. There is sort of a conundrum though, between the, what you need to do to potentially avoid an arrest or a prosecution versus what you need to do to avoid giving evidence of having committed a crime. Because technically, as I said, consent is not a defense. So if you're giving the police or prosecutors a bunch of evidence regarding consent, technically you could be admitting to criminal activity. Now, again, as a practical matter, that's probably not going to be pursued because police and prosecutors just don't want to pursue it. But it does present something of a dilemma. What you do to avoid being arrested. What you do to avoid being arrested, prosecuted in the first place, and what you might need to avoid a conviction. Okay. So what are these things? Well, I mean, obviously the common sense to avoid getting arrested at all is don't have the police called. You know, I mean. It's not, it's not, I mean, we really don't have control over that. No, no, but I mean. Yeah, but I think what you're, maybe what you're referring to is, you know, if you're, if you live in, I don't know, a neighborhood where there's a lot of, you know, really conservative people and they hear loud noises. It's not even. Don't frighten the villagers, as the old guard used to say. Is what? Don't frighten the villagers, as the old guard used to say. I can just say it was peacocks. Oh my God. You've heard them. They're fucking loud. They are. Yes. Yes. So, okay. Let me bring something up. Sure. So there's also this, this thing I've also heard about. Well, you know, your, your DS contract has no standing anywhere. Is that something where you can say, look, this is consensual. It's right fucking here. You know, again, it's, it's one of those things where. Let me, let me back this up by saying anytime we're talking about any kind of arrest or prosecution, whether it's in this area or again, robbery or car theft, anything at all, you have this huge chain of events that's got to happen. I mean, the police have to determine in the field that you're arrestable, that there's a crime. They have to now actually go to their watch commander. And in our case, I don't know if it's necessarily true with every department, but I think so. They have to get an approval by a sergeant that basically says, yeah, this arrest was valid. And then it has to go. To a city or district attorney, depending on the level of the crime, then it has to go to a judge or jury. I mean, there's all these steps that have to, to an L on a detective, you know, to investigate this thing. So, um, in the case of this kind of activity, there's a lot of chains of events that have to happen here. And, and my, my point is that if you are really adamant about how this is, there is no victim here, somewhere down the chain, hopefully you're going to get somebody goes like, you're going to get somebody AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AGA of something. And if you were going to raise consent as a defense, now I've said it's traditionally not a defense, but we don't know exactly where the law is going to be evolving. This is evidence. I think the balance is that it would probably be helpful in most cases of establishing that potential for consent. Because keep in mind, when you are charging somebody or trying to convict somebody of a crime, you have to prove what exactly happened at that moment. Not that there was some general pattern necessarily of a relationship. I mean, you could even have a consensual, obviously DS relationship and a non-consensual BDSM scene. If a sub or bottom revokes consent, if they don't consent to that particular act, if they call their safe word, the DS relationship or the contract doesn't necessarily save you. Let me point something out too. Again, if I am in a sexual relationship with a woman and I take something off the shelf, some wooden thing, and I charge somebody of a crime, I don't have to prove it. turn around and I don't realize she's right there and I smack her in the back of the head and I cause her to bleed. Absolutely no intent whatsoever. It's a complete accident. Right. And for some reason, yeah, there's no crime at all. So just because I've created a mark on somebody that I've had a sexual relationship with, it doesn't make it a crime. That's why it's willful. Exactly. So, but my point was to tell the listeners, I mean, this is also just another avenue where you can say there, you know, you can say to somebody, uh, please prosecute or whatever. This was not a willful act to harm me. This was a completely consensual act. And again, he's, you know, Tom has pointed out it's not traditionally that way, but it would be hard for me to imagine that they would continue with a prosecution where people were really adamant about how this was not a willful act to harm you, you know? So again, I, I, do I know exactly what would happen? No, of course not. Cause there's so many people in the chain of events there, but that's just my gut feeling. Like they probably wouldn't keep going. Or would that it wouldn't, you know, it's, it was this very consensual type activity. You know, in the matter of consent, I mean, there's a number of things you can imagine that could be used to prove up consent if it came to it. I mean, safe words establish, you know, a baseline for whether consent is there or not. SSC or RAC, um, following those modalities that provides a basis for establishing consent, um, consent even inferred potentially, you know, which is always the issue that comes up, uh, you know, in a lot of rape or sexual assault prosecutions. But whether, um, you know, there was a manifestation of consent. Right. So really quickly, just to, to, to rewind, we had talked about before you even get down this path of the, of the legalese, what can general kinksters do to protect themselves? No, if an officer does arrive before an officer arrives to prevent an officer from arriving other than, you know, just not doing it in a thin walled apartment, what are the other kind of tips, tricks, advice? I would say sexualize things. Um, put it in the context of a sexual relationship. We do have a Supreme Court case now from 2003 Lawrence v. Texas. This was the one that struck down sodomy laws. Um, it says basically that, you know, there is a due process and equal protection, right? To, uh, intimate relations. So if you, the more you can put this in the context of a sexual or sexual type relationship. I think in the long term that helps. If you've got anything else to say about sort of investigation. Yeah, I mean, it's, boy, it's a tough one to say, how do you prevent something like this? Because, you know, a series of small steps of bad things always... Thunders or... Yeah, that's what creates the disasters, right? I mean, when the big ship blows up in the harbor, it wasn't one big thing. It was a hundred little teeny things that went wrong. So it's the same thing here. It's going to be a bunch of... Right, like in the Titanic. Yeah, well, that's true. I mean, it's true. I mean, the captain... Not doing bad things too is a good thing also to just staying out of trouble. I mean, that's always the... Trouble, you know, in rabbit quotes, it's very relative. I mean, some of the play that we do, people would look at it. I mean, there are people in the kink community that look at some of the things people, edge players do and go, oh my God, wow, that's way too intense for me. That might be considered, you know, kind of... Questionable behavior that maybe somebody else would be like, hmm, uncomfortable with. And you never know, that could cause trouble. Well, of course. And that's... You absolutely... I mean, I know you're like really... We've had this discussion. You're really big into the, you know, the discussion and consent and all that. I'm... You hate that. Yeah, because, I mean, if you're with somebody that you care about and you trust, then it's just, you know, it is what it is. I mean, it's, you know... Consent is the... Nancy, am I right? Consent really is the bottom line. It's true. Bob counsels me to not negotiate with you. Are you fucking serious? I do not. I do not either. She's a liar. I am not lying. I'll fucking throw this Fanta at you. You know I wouldn't do that. I'm gonna watch some of that. He said, God, you like, you fucking negotiate and you talk all the... Just do it. I say that in front of her. I don't say it behind her back. I didn't say it was behind her back, but how is that not counseling me to not negotiate? That is totally counseling you not to negotiate. Right? Thank you. You agreed with me the last time. You agreed with me the last time. You totally agreed with me. Now you're suddenly 180 degrees. Give me... No, don't look at me like that. That's wrong. You are wrong. You know you agreed with me totally the last time. I think that Bob has a little bit of an eidetic memory, so you might be screwed. Fuck. I'm sorry, Tom. We didn't mean to cut you off. All right. No, consent is the bottom line. I mean, it's an elusive concept because it is a mental state, you know, and that's, it's always, you know, tricky to prove, but it's pretty simple. Did they want it to happen or not? If you've done things to establish that it's there, like I was talking about, like negotiations, like following something like SSC Iraq, you know, that helps a lot there. But, you know, there is always sort of the issue of if something goes wrong where a top's, you know, ass is kind of in the hands of the bottom, really. True. You know, are they going to say it's consensual or not? Odds are, if everybody agrees it's consensual, you know, a criminal case is never going to result. Mm. Mm. And that's where there is a dispute about these things that, you know, we have a problem. Now, we were discussing downstairs the, the, that case, I think you said it was in New York. Trevinovic. Yeah. So I had read some review, I don't know, some, somebody reviewed it and, and had things that they suggested to be done that would have been done differently because however it turned out. Anyway, so correct me if I'm wrong, but essentially it was a man and a woman who had negotiated via email for a very, very intimate, very intimate conversation. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. she would be tied up and beaten and raped and basically kind of trapped and left. Right. And left like in a cage for like a certain number of days. It was all kind of negotiated. And then it happened. And then she said that it was not consensual. And of course, there's so many components in there that you could have chosen not to consent to any one of them. And who's to say? I mean, nobody knows other than those two people. But you specifically said that other things. So talk about that because I have nothing else to say. Well, that's a pretty complicated case. I mean, the bottom line there was whether or not evidence of this negotiation prior to the individual's meeting could be introduced as evidence of consent. There's a rape shield law in New York, for example, that would prevent a defendant from introducing evidence about a alleged victim's sexual past. That's somewhat in conflict with the Sixth Amendment right to confront your accusers. And it was in this particular case because this went to, you know, a specific evidence negating an element of the crime, consent. So that was largely determinative in that case. Now, the facts there, ultimately, the New York District Attorney declined to prosecute the case after it came back from their Court of Appeals. Court of Appeals, excuse me. The facts there, though, you know, yes, you can introduce evidence of this prayer negotiation and say that it's consent, but how strong evidence is it? Do they consent to that specific act? Did they consent to whatever example? What exactly happened? Did what happened exceed the scope of their consent? Those are all potential issues that could come up in a case like that. I mean, the case basically says, well, you can introduce negotiation to specific things and that can be introduced as defense evidence of consent. And that was a complicated case, too, dealing with, you know, what we originally said about whether consent's a defense to assault or battery because consent only came about because there were sexual assault charges there. Now, obviously, consent is a defense to sexual assault. It's a defense to sexual assault or rape because, you know, the only thing that makes that act criminal is the, you know, presence or absence of presence of consent. You know, you basically have sex. Then if you have, you know, rape or sexual assault with consent. So given that those charges were in that specific case, it turns into a little bit of a complicated little ball. Well, but it's interesting because when you're dealing with, all of us have had scenes and we've had a concept of a scene and we've even negotiated. And it never goes exactly 100% the way it's been negotiated from A to Z ever because that's boring and we're human beings and our bodies respond differently and maybe the bottom is responding more to a particular, you know, whatever's happening and less to something else. So you modify it in the middle of it. So to me, any within that, you can negotiate till your heart's, you know, till you're blue in the face beforehand. But the truth of the matter is it has to be kind of like, the penal code for thing. It has to be not the letter of the negotiation, but what is the essence of what you've negotiated. And I think that that's where if you have somebody who feels as though they've been wronged somehow, I think that's where it becomes a problem. Well, that's, you know, if you're talking about edge play, that's maybe where you start getting into rack or prick. I think that involves sort of the spirit here. You know, we're not saying yes, this, no, this. We are, let's lay out what the limits of the potential, the risks are before we, you know, get all head spaced out that we don't know what we're doing. Right. So, you know, rather than establishing a bright line, you sort of put what you're going to do or not going to do in a box. That's one thing. I mean, I think it would be helpful long term if, you know, this is just sort of my fantasy here, maybe the National Coalition of Sexual Freedom's fantasy. If some of these, you know, understandings that the community has could be adopted into legal reasoning, you know, there have been some attempts in criminal cases to introduce expert testimony on, you know, on these topics. I think that would be really helpful. No, that'd be great. Yeah. Now, obviously... Maybe embarrassing in an open court, but... A little bit. I suppose it depends. You have to pick your jurors very carefully. Yeah. That would be an interesting jury selection process. That would be a nice board year. I would like to see that. Yeah. Exactly. Can you imagine the questions? Have you ever engaged? Have you ever engaged in BDSM? Have you ever had a strap-on? Have you ever been pegged, sir? Do you know what a strap-on is? A lot of people don't know what pegging is. I mean, the community has a, you know, we have a very fine-grained and distinct concept of what consent is and what it isn't. So, you know, I don't know whether that can be incorporated into criminal law. You know, it really would be sort of a case-by-case basis. And again, you know, the thing is, is that these cases so often, just again, for the practical reasons we were talking about, come up on bad facts. I mean, these are cases where there's a consent dispute. And realistically, many of them probably are cases of domestic violence, assault, kidnapping, whatever, where somebody is trying to use this as a defense. And we, I really don't think that we want our community, our norms used to excuse that kind of behavior. Not at all. Mm-mm. Yeah. Because there's a difference. And we've had the conversation of, is it abuse? We've had... Yeah. There's a difference. And we've had the conversation of, is it abuse? We've had... That topic has been discussed. And it's, you know, there is another level. And when it is abuse, I would encourage somebody to, you know, seek out, well, number one, get out. And if they wanted to go through the prosecution process, which personally, I wouldn't do. I would just want to leave. Right. Because it's just too much, it's too much of a hassle. And it's a headache. And it's horrible to have to sit there and look at your abuser time and time again. It's... Yeah. But it probably depends, too, on what exactly the abuse was. True. You know, for some people... I would definitely... I agree with you 99%. But for some instances, that 1%, you're going to go, no, no, no, you need to call the police. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I mean, I think that people need to understand that if it is beyond just BDSM play, consensual, you know, rack, all of that, if it's beyond that, then that's when they should seek out, number one, leaving their partner, and number two, their own particular resources, which we've discussed in the past. Right. Now, let me bring this up. But before I say it, let me just be very, very clear. I am totally against non-consensual stuff. Abuse is not okay with me. Not okay. Now, say, for instance, there is a top. And this top has an understanding with the bottom that they're going to play and they're going to do stuff. And afterwards, the bottom is like, fuck. That's it. this, this is not cool, buyer's remorse. Okay. And then there's, you know, slippery slope shit, right? How, in that instance, when both people are not on the same page about whether or not something was consensual, how does that top protect themselves? I mean, this is, these are great questions. And I don't think the two of us sitting here can even begin to really, really truly address that because there are so many different shades of gray there. No, you didn't. Oh, fuck you. I could throw my brand new fucking phone at you right now. I wasn't even thinking of that stupid ass book. You can't, you can't, yeah. It wasn't, oh my God, I'm leaving now. That is a tough question, you know. It is a tough question. I mean, you know, technically in a criminal case, you have to establish intent, basically. You have to establish intent. Normally for every element of the crime in many jurisdictions, in California, we have a mistake of fact defense. So if a top believed there was consent and there was not, if they reasonably believed there was consent and there was not, technically that could be a legal defense in this case. Right, and that's true. It's all about proving that up. Exactly. That's all about what happens to the third party to prove all of that. So what Nancy's, what she's saying is really critically important because, you know, it's all about, you know, explaining this to third parties. And, oh, by the way, you got to explain this to this third party at some point when you're in a really, really bad way. You're in custody, you're, whatever is the deal, you know. So it would be a very stressful type thing. As a practical matter, and this is totally not a legal, you know, pointer analysis, but, I would say from a top's perspective, it really helps to bring them back down to earth. Aftercare, sometimes, especially when you've had a hard scene, believe it or not, can really save your ass. Send them home happy. Send them home happy, especially if you've taken them to a bad place, do what you can to bring them back to a happy place. Oh, yeah, we talk about the triage. When it's gone bad, I've talked about that, especially when we're doing like humiliation, which, woo, that happens. Yeah, just think of adding on there, though, one little extra reason for that, keeping yourself from being accused of something you didn't do. Yeah. I think that part of the challenge to any and all of this, number one, is trying to prove intent malice, the frame of mind that the person's in. But additionally, if you're not in a dungeon, if you're doing private play, it's he said, she said, or she said, she said, it's one person's word against another person's word. And that makes it additionally challenging, which is when I think whether you want to bring in a contract or any other kind of negotiations you may have had via text or email or other, if it's allowed by whatever that might, I would think if I'm correct, at least help bolster their negotiations or their, or their, their claim that it was consensual. It depends what one's being accused of. I mean, it's, it's certainly evidence, but you know, as I've said, you know, a bottom can withdraw consent at any time. True. And, you know, activities can also exceed the scope of consent. Yeah. And again, I, I, I don't want to ignore this. You know, we don't, we want to make sure that cases of actual abusers can be prosecuted more easily. I think that that's a huge issue as it is with rape. Victims don't want to report it. If they've got a bad history, you know, very often police or prosecutors are not going to want to touch it. Um, you know, I, I think NCSF has done some work on this, you know, on educating, uh, law enforcement and criminal justice professionals to the best of their ability on, you know, sort of what the norms are and where, where consent and abuse is. And where it isn't, you know, so it's, we, we want to, I, I think long term, we want a situation where we're going to get more abusers and bad people out and make it easier for people who are victims to come forward if that's what they choose to do, but not, you know, sweep up people who are wrongfully accused. Absolutely. Now you've mentioned the, um, NCSF a couple times. Can you just tell the listeners, we don't talk about it a lot, what they do, what, what resources they provide, what, what information, et cetera. Well, I'm not a, a, a member representative. I'll just qualify myself saying that. Just what do you know? Sure. NCSF is the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom. They're, they're basically the ACLU for, you know, kinky people. Uh, they provide a lot of information on the web, a lot of, you know, research I've done on this topic I got from them. They do actually take on some cases or refer them to attorneys, although they, you know, for reasons we've kind of discussed here are very selective, uh, about the kind of cases they take. They, you know, they, they want to avoid bad precedents. They want to avoid getting into a situation of protecting abusers and so forth. Um, they lobby, they liaise with, you know, law enforcement to, to, you know, educate and provide information like I was talking about. Well, and, and a notable resource that they have also is if you're looking for a kink aware professionals, yes, specifically therapists, like they have that. So that's also something that people should know. Absolutely. And lawyers. And lawyers. Um, so now Bob, yes. Um, so when I, when I, when I told mistress, Hey, we should have on Bob. And she was like, why I did, I was like, why the reason for this was because, so one time I went to the doctor and I was having a pelvic exam and I had some, you know, really suspicious looking shit on my thighs and, and I was like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. And AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA AGA Why? Why do you want to have on Bob? It occurred to me, you know, a cop is the first person you see when shit goes bad. Exactly. And how, you know, other than remaining calm, which I think would be really difficult in a situation like that, what is the best way for someone when they're in that situation and law enforcement shows up, what is the best way to cooperate? You know what? There's a real magic trick here. Honestly. And people, you know, I try to explain this. Bob, I didn't know you believed in magic. No, no, no, no. Not that kind of magic trick. No, there's, people don't really get this, but I try to explain it to them all the time. Even when you're just getting pulled over, if you talk to the officer like they're a long lost friend, it throws you off. If that officer pulls you up and you go- Oh my God, it's so good to see you. Not like that, but yeah, like, hey, how's it going? Like, I mean, if you approach it like that, they, it's hard to wrap your head around, I'm going to now write this person a ticket when they're like being so nice and so friendly and like they know me, you know? I'm telling you, it's kind of a, it's a weird thing. And so in answer to your question, if the police arrive, don't think of it like, oh my God, I'm a victim. I'm in trouble here. Talk to them like they're long lost friends. You're so happy to see them. Oh my God. I just had this awesome, awesome scene where we had this fantastic humiliation. It was so great. So wet. And then she pulled out the knife and the rope was going up my crotch. You know what? If you said that, they'd probably go, wow, okay. I guess we'll talk to you later. I'm not sure I would admit that much. They'd have to walk away in fucking 50 shades. I'm not saying you have to admit that much. I'm just saying it's how you present yourself. Because if you're timid, frightened, you're acting like you're the victim or not a victim, but I mean like, you're a suspect of something. If you're acting like that, they're going to key off that. If you're acting like, man, I'm happy to see you guys. You're really cool. I love to see you. It just, there's no way to really like, be like, you know, type A personality after that. It just throws people off. I do love a uniform. Well, there you go. And you can say that to them. That'll throw them off. Would you like to come in for a cup of coffee? You know, I got to tell you, can I tell you a little funny story? Please. Please. All right. So I wasn't too worried about this getting pulled over. I was with a girlfriend who was my mistress at the time. She was smoking a cigarette and unbeknownst to me, she threw the cigarette out the passenger window. And the next thing I know, we're getting stopped by the highway patrol. And I wasn't too concerned because I can, you know, I mean, I know how to walk the walk and talk the talk, but still this guy never even got that far because he walked up to the passenger side as highway patrol typically do. And I'm still thinking, why did I get pulled over? Because I had no idea she had done that. And he kind of leans in the car and he goes, sir, the reason I pulled you over is because, you know, your girlfriend threw a cigarette out the window. And I was, I like literally wasn't even paying attention. I said, oh, did you really do that? And she goes, yeah. And I looked at him and I said, I said, listen, officer, if you'll let us go, I promise you I'll take her right home and spank the shit out of her. And she turned to him and went, oh, he'll do it. And this guy had no clue what to do. He just kind of went, uh, okay. I guess you have it all taken under hand. And he walked out to the police car and he left. That's awesome. So I'm just saying, if you, you know, if you approach it in a different way than normal people, it just unwires the brain. It's just a natural human thing, you know? So anyway, that's how I would approach it. So I'm thinking you, you know, telling me you were intended to commit 273.5. Yeah. Well, that's great. But the thing is he, he, you know, when she turned and went, oh, he'll do it. Like that was just like the, the straw with the camel's back. He was like, I don't know where to go with this. So he just kind of turned around. Okay. I'll see you later. So, you know, it, it's how you approach it. It's psychology. It's all about psychology. Fucking Bob. Fucking Bob. Of course. Naturally that would happen. So just, you know, don't, don't think of them in this enemy. Think of them as your, your long lost, uniformed friends. And it works wonders. I'm telling you. All right. Well, no, none of them knock on my door. I guess. Is that good or bad? I'm not sure. It's probably a good thing. Yeah. That's right. Overall. That's a good thing. Yeah. Uniform though. Tell them that when they first show up. Oh man, in uniform. Is it my birthday? Are you stripping? Oh my God. I have singles. I don't care if they arrest you for robbery. They're going to go, oh, this is cool. This is, please keep going. Yeah, that's exactly awesome. Oh my God. Wait, I might just have coins. Can I throw coins at you? Sorry. Woo. See, you've unwired Nancy right now. She doesn't even know. Okay. Fantastic. I might not have a lot to contribute for the last 10 minutes of the show, but I am so good. I mean, that kind of raises an interesting point, what he's talking about. You know, sometimes in, in criminal law, we talk about being in sort of the court of cop, you know, because they are really the gatekeepers to the criminal justice system. I mean, until they make an arrest, nothing else happens. So, you know, it's, I mean, it's, it doesn't exactly fit into our legal or constitutional system, how we think of that. But, you know, it really does sort of fall into a realm of kind of human relations. So invite them in for cupcakes and coffee. Got it. It's not going to hurt. Always have cupcakes on hand. Got it. Not going to hurt. Well, no, I mean, to the same point, we had the ladies from Sanctuary LAX on last week. Last week, the week before. Last week. And they were talking about how vice just comes by. And it's like, hey, everything good. Everything, you know, now everything's cool. You know, they're not hauling them away for battery. Friendly relationship. A very cordial kind of relationship. And I imagine, yes, you're right. I imagine that when you're at home, you want to have the same kind of ease towards law enforcement. That's surprising you at home. I think it's a little bit, it's a little bit easier when that's your profession and you have to, you have an established building and that's where things happen to be at ease. But I think any one of us, when a police officer knocks on our door, we freak out a little bit and our mind races with all of the things we've done wrong. Like when your boss calls you to their office or when you were ever called to the principal's office, all of those things where you're like, everything you could possibly have done wrong races through your mind. And it's difficult to shed that because we're human beings. Right. It's a little bit different, you know, if you're getting pulled over, you're kind of be like, okay, you know what you do, you didn't know what you did, you're trying to figure it out. But if you don't know what you did, it's like, especially when you do what we do. Oh my God, did somebody see the knife marks? Somebody reported the bite mark on Nancy's arm and she works with a bunch of people that know the law. Fuck. Right? So I've had this monster bruise in my arm for about a week now. I bit her. Yeah. And so I went to work and I was wearing something that was either short sleeve or sleeveless. Well, you had to cover up the knife marks on your chest. There was that. Yeah. So it was kind of like had to take like the lesser of the two evils. My show on the knife marks, the bite mark knife marks, but I don't know. People just kept looking at me. Start investing in turtlenecks maybe. Yeah, long sleeves. In the summer. It's only a hundred degrees. It's cool. They'll think you're either kinky or a junkie. Exactly. Shoot between your toes. Where have we gone? All those conversations. Oh my God. Shoot between your toes you come up with. I saw a movie. I don't know. You have derailed this entire conversation. I derailed every conversation. Single-handedly. No, back to, you know, somebody, the bite mark. You never know. It could happen. Another knock, knock, knock. You wouldn't have been there though. No. Wherever they would have knock, knock, knocked at. My P.O. box. Waiting for the P.O. box. Hands feel short. Show up sometime. Okay, I'm sorry. So the answer to the bite marks when they show up is, oh, that was an accident. I mean. No, you bumped into like a door jam. Yeah. That's what I said. It had a tooth shaped door knob. It had dentures in this thing. And I know it just, it was kind of roundish, a little, you know, you could have bumped into a door jam that had like a thing poking out or, or you know what the best thing is? I have no idea. You know, some people, some people asked other people just like fucking, they kept looking, but never asked. This coming, this coming from the girl who's wearing a lock around her neck. Right. My God. You know, change your name to Luca. Wow. That's a reference. A lot of people didn't get, I didn't. It's a song. My name is Luca. I live on the second floor. I live upstairs. Apparently that is not music that I listen to. Suzanne Vega from the nineties or the late eighties. I think late eighties. It was one of the two. Trying to think of one. It was one of the two of my timeline in my life. Sing it for us though. Would you? I just did about all the words that I knew. Nope. No. Beautiful singing voice. That's all I got now right now. It has one of those very important messages about domestic violence. Well, it might be a little bit better than M and M's messages about domestic violence. Probably. Yeah. Orionis. 1987. Late eighties. You've come a long way baby. I remember 1987. I remember that year. Yeah. Yeah. You don't remember that year. I don't. Nope. Baby fucking children. Anyway. Okay. So back on track. Oh man, you made my eye twitch. I'm focused. Okay. Okay. Um, have you, you've, you've had to do domestic violence calls. Any times. And were any of those, did you ever get a sense that it might have been consensual or were they all kind of like standard domestic violence calls? I don't ever recall. I don't remember getting one that had any sort of, there was no hesitation. There was no, um, ambiguity to any of the ones that I went to. I mean, it was all pretty cut and dried, you know, there's somebody battered and bruised and they're upset about it, you know? Okay. Um, was it usually the victim that called you or would, would it have been a neighbor or, you know, it's, I don't really remember. It's, I mean, it's, I say, I don't remember. It can be any of those things. So, um, I would say most of the time it's the victim or another family member, you know, that's in the house. Um, there were certainly times when it was a minor bruise or whatever. And the victim absolutely said, no, no, no, I don't want them arrested. That happens actually very often. And again, under California law, uh, you're not, it's not up to you. I'm sorry. We're taking them to jail. So, um, it's happened many times, but, uh, I don't ever, I can't personally remember anyone that was, uh, uh, there was any ambiguity at all. I think it was all pretty cut and dried stuff. I think it would have, I probably would have to have stood back and sort of thought about what was going on. If you know, you go in and somebody is tied to the St Andrew's cross or something like that, I probably would. I mean, and forget, I mean, I would divorce myself from any kinky personal thoughts or ideas. It would literally, I would stand back and go, okay, you know, I'm a police officer. Let's examine this. What do we really have here? And I think I. For me personally, and again, divorcing myself from any kind of the kinky community or whatever, I would probably say, yeah, this is not really the spirit of the law. This is, I mean, the, the neighbor called certainly this isn't, this person's claiming they're not a victim of anything. This is perfectly consensual. So I would probably, you know, say, oh, well have fun guys. I'd probably split just because to me it would not qualify as 273.5, but I can easily see other officers not, I probably wouldn't even ask the question, do you guys have sex? Cause that's what makes it too. Cause otherwise it would just be, well, it could be 245 assault, the deadly weapon if she's using whips and stuff, but. Those are deadly weapon? Well, yeah. Under 245 ADW it is because it's the, the law simply reads any act or omission that is likely to produce great bodily injury. So if you're whipping somebody clearly, you could possibly create. So pretty much most of the toy bags at the dungeon. Everything in your bag. What's that thing I said before too about. That's the, uh, the area where the courts tend to use things where they're going to express approval or disapproval of tends to be a little bit of a sliding scale if it ever comes to a question. Yeah, exactly. So like flogger would be like, eh, but a whip would be like, ah, you know? Well, I mean, again, it would also depend on what they consider great bodily injury. Obviously, you know, you've seen these like multi-tailed floggers that are kind of a joke. I mean, you can hit somebody as hard as you can and they don't even feel it. You know, it's just like nothing, you know? Bunny flog. Yeah, I know. It's like, really? Bunny flog. Bunny floggers are hard. The company bunny floggers make serious stuff. No, no, no. The company, you're right. But I'm thinking actually, you know, bunny. So the bottom line is, I mean, obviously if you're using a big, huge oak paddle, that's a little different than, you know, something with, uh, you know, feathers attached to it, you know? So. Hmm. It's my whole toy bag. Yeah. Right. So basically likely to produce great bodily injury. Well, I hope so. I have a goal. I'm not arguing that. Some people heal too fast. I'm not arguing that at all. I'm simply talking about the law, my dear. I have no idea who you're talking about. No names. But there is a, you know, the, the, the difference between that 245 law and 273.5 is really, in a sense, I mean, I'm over, way oversimplifying it, but in a sense, the difference between those two laws are basically, have you had sex with this person? Ever? Never. Never. Ever? Yeah. Ever. Doesn't have to be a continual sexual relationship? Nope. Whoa. You had sex 30 years ago and never since. If you've, as long as you had sex once, it's now 273.5 because there's marks as a part. Or if you're a cohabitant. Or a cohabitant. Right. You can be a cohabitant without sex? Right. It could be your roommate. Yeah. That's true. I forgot about that provision too. But, um, I would think in most situations, I would think if you're in a BDSM relationship, it's not, you're not going to just be a cohabitant. You'd probably be a sexual. I mean, you know, of course there's a thousand different ways people do things in the world. So. That is true. Very true. This has been really. Tonight has been so enlightening. I know. And you know what? It's normally a fun, festive mood in here. It's so somber in here tonight. I tried and I got mocked for it. That's serious stuff, you know? Yeah. That's true. I have to give a shout out to my princess. Yes. And I'd like to thank your princess for allowing you to come on. Yes. Allowing me because I was. I was actually grounded because I was doing something bad. Focus. And, um, she allowed me to come tonight. So thank you very much. I adore you, princess. Thank you. And I do want to give a plug. I already gave a plug for NCSF. Um, you know, if you need help actually, uh, cause you're in a domestic violence situation, there's a lot of outfits that can help you. Not only the police. I volunteer actually with the, uh, Los Angeles County bars, domestic violence project. We work, uh, five days a week down at the central courthouse on one 11 North Hill street in downtown LA. Um, and all we do all day basically is help people get restraining orders if they need that. Oh, those are bitch to get by the way. Well, we simplify the process. That's what we do all day. It's fantastic. I love tonight so much. I do too. It's been really fantastic. It's just been great. Are you happy you had Bob on now? I'm always happy to see Bob. All right. It was not, it was not about not seeing you. Well, you made it sound like that. I wanted to cry. Okay. Let me note that when I said to Bob, Hey Bob, Nancy wants you to come on. He said, well, I'm not going to come on. I'm not going to come on. I'm not going to come on. I don't know what I'm going to be able to add. Well, that's true because I didn't think of all the intricacies of that. I mean, I don't know that I would have been able to say anything without you here. Well, thank you. You need to talk. You were very, very vital. All right. Love the hook fest later. It would have been a very incomplete picture. All right. So, uh, thank you so much for coming on the show. We're having a wonderful cutting them the fuck off. Subs. Anyway, um, this is intellectual king. Uh, download us. Share us on iTunes. Review us. Please. Um, yeah, share us, you know, tweet us. Maybe not Facebook. Your mom might not be receptive to that. You can tweet me. I don't, you will not probably get a response very soon. Well, you have to ask. You haven't actually asked for social media in several days. Jeremy sent me a DM. It's like, what the fuck is up with you? And I didn't get to read it. Yeah, man. You never respond to my DMs. So here's the thing. I have to ask her for permission to tweet or see any of that shit. Oh, I didn't know that. And you should ask. And I haven't said no yet. That's true. So. Anyway, but if you want to try and get a hold of us on these social medias, I'm insidious muse like everywhere. And I'm service slut. Like everywhere. Um, yeah. And share us. And we have something. We have nobody next week. That I know of. No, but we have our friend Julie coming on again. At the very end of the month. For our Halloween show. Yeah. Don't know what that is. We got to figure out what we're going to do next week. But anyway. We can talk about scary stuff with her. Oh. Ideas are brewing. Fair play. Fair play. Awesome. Okay. Thank you gentlemen for coming on. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you for having us.