Consent and the Perception of Normality
How Our Perception of What Is Normal Affects Consent
· 7 min read
“The greatest obstacle to good consent is therefore often not differing boundaries. It is differing ideas about what is so normal that it does not need to be discussed.”
When consent is discussed, most attention focuses on the question of what a person agreed to. We discuss boundaries, the negotiation of activities, safety rules, or whether consent was sufficiently informed. Much less attention, however, is given to the question of everything that was never made a subject of consent at all.
The reason is surprisingly simple. We do not usually negotiate things we consider self-evident.
Every person enters interpersonal relationships with their own idea of normality. This sense of normality does not arise from a conscious decision. It is shaped by previous experiences, the environment in which a person lives, the people they encounter, and the situations they repeatedly experience. Gradually, it ceases to be one possible interpretation of reality and becomes the filter through which reality is perceived.
This is precisely why normality is almost invisible. Not because we want to conceal it, but because we cease to be aware of its existence. Assumptions are nevertheless inherent in our perception. The brain operates through prediction and, to some extent, mistakes previous experience for reality itself rather than understanding it as merely one of its possible interpretations.
This applies to every interpersonal relationship, but the mechanism becomes particularly pronounced in BDSM or shibari. Over the years, an experienced rigger develops their own way of working. A particular pace, style of communication, use of silence, authority, touch, or guidance of the person being tied begins to feel like a natural part of a session. The rigger ceases to recognise that most of these elements are not universal characteristics of shibari. They are the result of their own development.
The same process occurs in those who are tied. Each person develops their own idea of what to expect from a session, how communication should take place, how much guidance they need, or which expressions of trust feel natural to them. These ideas do not have to be conscious. We often become aware of them only when someone disrupts them.
This is where the first significant connection between normality and consent emerges.
Consent is not merely an agreement about what will happen. It is also an agreement about what both parties consider so self-evident that they do not discuss it at all.
This dimension of consent is usually implicit. It does not arise because people have consciously agreed upon it. It arises because each assumes that the other shares a similar understanding of how the situation would normally unfold. The more their ideas overlap, the less aware they are of their existence. The more they differ, the greater the likelihood of misunderstanding.
Paradoxically, experience itself can deepen this problem.
As a person gains experience, they do not merely acquire greater technical confidence. At the same time, they cease to notice the many small decisions they once made consciously. Their style of communication, use of authority, the pace of a session, or the way they establish trust gradually become automatic. They cease to be decisions and become matters of course.
Experience therefore creates a particular paradox. The more a person knows, the less aware they may become of which parts of their behaviour result from personal choice and which they regard as universal norms.
This is especially significant in the relationship between an experienced person and a beginner.
A new model has no frame of reference of their own. They do not know what is common practice within the community, what represents the personal style of a particular rigger, and what is unique to the session currently taking place. They are therefore unable to identify independently which aspects of the situation may be psychologically significant and which would be appropriate to discuss in advance.
For this reason, good consent cannot be understood merely as a list of activities to which the model agrees. It is equally important to become aware of our own assumptions about what we consider self-evident.
This does not mean that we should attempt to negotiate every detail. That is neither possible nor desirable. It is far more important to adopt a different way of thinking: to recognise that our own sense of normality is not an objective property of reality, but the result of our experience.
An experienced rigger does not therefore need to predict every possible reaction of the person being tied. That is beyond human ability. They can, however, ask themselves a different question:
What do I consider completely ordinary that may be an entirely new experience for the other person?
In my view, this question represents one of the most important components of good consent. Not because it eliminates every misunderstanding, but because it reminds us of something essential. The greatest blind spots do not arise where people consciously disagree. They arise where both assume that their own sense of normality is self-evident to the other person as well.
As experience grows, however, it is not only what a person does that changes. The meaning they attribute to particular situations changes as well. Gestures that initially felt significant and required conscious attention gradually become an ordinary part of their practice. They cease to be perceived as messages and begin to be understood primarily as means of achieving a particular objective.
Here, too, experience can become a source of significant misunderstanding.
The same gesture does not necessarily carry the same meaning for both participants. An experienced rigger may perceive a particular action primarily in terms of its function. For example, if they use a brief physical stimulus to redirect attention, activate the body, or influence the dynamics of a session, after years of experience they may understand it as an “ordinary communication tool.” The psychological meaning of the gesture itself gradually recedes into the background.
The model, however, may not interpret the same experience in the same way. If they have never encountered similar behaviour before, they will not evaluate it according to its function within the particular session, but according to the meanings they have developed throughout their life. The identical gesture may therefore be perceived as an expression of authority, aggression, trust, intimacy, rejection, or humiliation. Not because any of these meanings is objectively correct, but because the human mind always interprets new situations through previous experience.
This is precisely why two people may leave the same session with entirely different experiences without either of them having understood the situation “incorrectly.” The rigger may feel that they used a completely ordinary method, while the model may leave with an experience that significantly affected their perception of trust, safety, or personal boundaries, or even their perception of themselves.
This mechanism does not concern beginners alone. Even a highly experienced model may interpret a particular gesture differently from the rigger if it acquires a specific meaning arising from their shared relationship, previous experiences, or current life circumstances. They may, for example, interpret ordinary initial awkwardness as a message. Meaning is not a fixed property of an action. It always arises in the relationship between a particular gesture, a particular person, and a particular situation.
Consent therefore does not relate only to what happens during a session. It also relates to the meanings that both participants attribute to individual gestures and situations. This is where the connection between consent and the perception of normality becomes most apparent. What is so ordinary to one person that they no longer give it any thought may be one of the most psychologically significant moments of the entire experience for the other.