The masochist is not the beating heart of every kink interaction. Sadists are whole people, too.

I recently had a (vanilla) conversation that went something like this:

I’m not going to do X. It might harm you.

I’m already destroyed. It’s okay to do X.

Destruction isn’t a finite thing. You can always sink deeper into a mire.

I’m really okay with the risk. I don’t really care.

I do care, though.

You really don’t have to care. I’m completely okay with it.

The one thing he couldn’t understand was that I wasn’t okay with it. Your indifference to your destruction has no bearing on my ethics. My willingness to harm you doesn’t grow with your willingness to take that harm. We are two separate entities. I take my boundaries with me everywhere I go. They don’t change every time I meet someone who’s in self-destruct mode.

The conversation didn’t happen in a kink context, but it does frame an important trait in S&M relationships: A sadist’s ethical boundaries don’t crash down simply because your masochistic heart is willing to be destroyed.

The masochist is not the beating heart of every kink interaction. Sadists are whole people, too. If you want someone to cook your earlobes with fava beans and a nice chianti, but your sadist is a vegan who’s into a little light spanking, your desires don’t trump their ethics. Convincing them of how little you care about your earlobes won’t achieve what you think it will. The depths to which you’re willing to sink are not the sole determinants of your play. If your partner only dives to 10 feet and you dive to 50, you have two ethical choices:

• Dive to 10 feet and no lower.
• Find a willing partner who dives to 50.

These are not ethical choices:

• Convincing your sadist that you don’t really mind the risks.
• Explaining why it isn’t a big deal.
• Telling them you’ll take all the consequences onto your shoulders. You won’t. Your sadist will have to live with the damage, too, possibly for the rest of their lives. You never can tell until you get to the end of the story, so no, Masochist Mike, you cannot take all the consequences onto your shoulders.

It’s tempting to make kink decisions as a couple. It’s tempting to dive as far as your partner will allow. It’s human nature to take on the ethics of your person. We are social beings with contagious values. The more time we spend around an idea, the more normalised it becomes, so we all need exceptional clarity to keep our boundaries upright.

We have a terrible habit of treating tops as the supporting characters in our stories. As masochists, we need to do better. We need to put actual work into honouring our partners’ boundaries. They are every bit as important as our own.