Recently someone said to me (I’m paraphrasing freely here) that they thought nobody could really consent to such extreme sexual practices as consuming shit & piss, severe s/m, and so on because those things were so very harmful that wishing to engage in them should be taken as de facto evidence of that person’s being mentally unsound, and therefore incapable of consent.

I want to leave aside the important question of whether these practices are harmful, and just look at this idea of consent. The ability to consent is essential to life as a free adult in our world. If you cannot consent to things you can’t sign a lease, get a credit card, even make your own medical decisions. We judge a person’s ability to consent on their being of reasonably sound mind, and their maturity. We also take into account that the appearance of consent can be coerced, through the use of drugs or alcohol, threats and violence, and misinformation.

We assume that persons under a set age don’t have the necessary maturity to rationally consent to things.

We also make this assumption about people who are seriously ill, mentally and in some cases physically.

In the case of the rest we grant that the person has the ability to consent, but that their ability to do so is negated by the circumstances which are imposed on them.

Now let’s go back to my friend’s assertion: that the desire and willingness to engage in dangerous sexual practices is sufficient evidence to presume one’s INability to consent.

Is the desire to do something dangerous sufficient to make this judgment? What about when people want to jump out of planes? Climb high mountains, where loads of explorers have met their deaths? Eat puffer fish? Enlist in the army? Play the last period of the big game on an injured leg? People choose to put themselves in danger all the time, why is this different?

Somehow, it seems, a person who chooses dangerous sexual activities is presumed ill, so severely ill that they no longer fit the qualification of “reasonably sound mind.” It seems to me that the problem here is not the danger, but the sex.

I may agree that playing at making some guy my toilet is disgusting, and I would certainly agree that such play requires utmost attention to safety issues, but does wanting such a scene mean this guy is incapable of consent? Would you refuse to let him sign a lease? Have a credit card? Make his own medical decisions? Why then is he incapable of making his own sexual decisions?

Seems to me that it’s much more dangerous to be negating people’s ability to consent based on their sexual lives than it is to let the odd pervert engage in a creepy fetish.

I just loooove giving advice. Somebody oughtta hire me to write an advice column. No, really. No, REALLY.

Anyhow, this is actually a bit I just wrote to post on the Panty Hog forum; and I liked it so much I wanted to spread it around. Although posted here I suppose it’s more in the nature of a rant.

This is advice to a guy who is having poor results in meeting women on an online dating service. Now my advice is geared more toward the “adult” sites such as Adult Friend Finder or alt.com than say, eHarmony or match.com. Being married already I don’t have much call to advertise in places where people are (essentially) looking for someone to marry; wheras I have advertised for, well, other things on the “adult” sites. But the principles are probably applicable to those places as well.

The first thing to remember is that on those sites, guys outnumber girls by ten or twenty to one. So you really have to stand out from the crowd to get noticed.

Number one tip: DO NOT SIT AROUND WAITING FOR THE LADIES TO CONTACT YOU because it isn’t going to happen. These women are flooded with messages, they don’t have time to go searching through the listings. You need to do the searching, and send a message to the girls that interest you.

Tip number two, please, please READ her profile before you message a girl. Eg., if she’s into nothing but black guys and you’re whiter than rice, she’s going to shoot you down for sure. That’s why they have profiles, and all too many guys just look at a girl’s pic and don’t even bother to read the profile. With the volume of messages a girl gets, ones from guys who are obviously looking for something completely different will be ignored at best and flamed at worst. It’s hard not to get annoyed when the tenth guy that day offers you something you explicitly said you don’t want!

Tip number three: Don’t forget to write your own profile!!! It’s there so others can get to know you, and you can bet that if your initial message catches her eye she’ll be looking at your profile before she answers. Don’t miss the opportunity to impress her; put some effort into it! Check your spelling and grammar, write in complete, understandable sentences. Don’t rattle off the tired line about “I just want to please you” either; women (rightly) don’t buy it and it just looks desperate. Say something about yourself, what you do for a living, what your hobbies are, whatever’s really important to you. Besides hooking up :-p

Tip number four: You should definitely post pictures with your profile, and they should NOT be pictures of your dick! Even a size queen will want to look at your face before she sees your penis. Remember too that most of the women won’t have paid for a membership, so they won’t be able to see your full-sized pic unless you send it with your message - so do send one (or more) and please, please, let it not be a pic of your woodie! Just imagine if you were anywhere else, and you walked up to a girl and whipped it out as you were saying hello.

(I sincerely hope that the regular dating sites like screen for those! )

Tip number six: When you write that first message to a woman you’re interested in, once again put some effort into it! For heaven’s sake say something more than “I’d like to meet with you, here’s my phone number” Whyever should she respond to that? Remember, she’s getting a LOT of messages, most of which run along the lines of “you’re so hot, here’s my email/phone number/instant message handle/home address, when can we get together?” These messages are boring (cause you get so many of them), rude (assumes you’ll want to/have time to meet any old body), and unwise (nobody with any sense is going to meet with a stranger right away). Tell her what you find attractive about her, from her picture(s) AND her profile. Tell her what you would like to do with her (keep the naughtiness level appropriate to the forum - girls on alt.com are going to be more open to outright lewdness than those on a regular dating site). And finally, tell her something more about yourself.

(Extra bonus tip - keep these items in that order - everybody likes to hear good things about themselves, and it’ll get you off on the right foot with her. )

Tip number seven: Keep your own wits about you. A good percentage of the “women” who place ads at places like Adult Friend Finder and alt.com are actually people (male and female) trolling for customers. Some of them have worse things planned. And it wouldn’t be any more wise for you to go giving out your home address & phone number or agreeing to meet a stranger in a motel room than it would be for HER. Your using good sense will protect your from being scammed, and it will impress her with your wisdom, coolness, and lack of desperation if she’s for real.