Important Considerations For Planning A Public Humiliation Scene

Public humiliation is quite a popular request and recently I have been receiving more and more inquiries for it, but there is a hell of a lot to think about in public humiliation, from a legal, personal, professional, emotional and community perspective, it's not something to get into without first giving it some serious thought.

Depending on what you want to do in public you could be breaking the law, being seen by the wrong person could cause massive implications in both your personal and professional life and have a knock on effect on your emotional well being, it's also quite a controversial practice potentially causing a backlash, both in and out of the BDSM community.

Most who call me have never given any thought to the consequences of their actions, so if public humiliation is something you're thinking about, do the responsible thing and read up properly on what public humiliation could actually involve.

The Law Vs. Public Perception - Evaluating the risk of a scene

So if we consider methods of public humiliation that are technically illegal, let's use the basic example of nudity or even having sex, then you need to be considering the possibilities and consequences. (Keeping in mind that while most BDSM practices are not illegal to do, performing them in public could be considered some form of indecency or exposure}

If you walk through the town center naked on a busy lunchtime or are getting it on in a public park you're likely to be arrested as a public nuisance, if it's an area with a large presence of children then people are gonna be really pissed and rightly so, you could be looking at the sex offenders register, being squirreled off in the woods somewhere where you might get caught by a couple of dog walkers however, not so bad, even if they call the police at the very least you have time to get dressed and run!

The reality is that any Mistress you contact for a public humiliation session is probably not going to want to take the risk of breaking the law to help you out, but the context of the situation and the public perception in that context are really important things to take into consideration when planning a public humiliation scene. You might want to walk down the high street in full rubber gimp get up, on a Monday lunch time that's probably going to be an issue, 11.30 on a Saturday night however, and you'll probably just be confronted with a bunch of pissed up piss takers! No parent wants to explain to a child why there is an adult man walking around the supermarket with a nappy hanging out of his jeans, which wouldn't even be that suspicious if you weren't being tailed by a stunning woman in stockings and heels, but one o'clock in the morning at the 24 hour tesco's and you'll probably just be providing the knackered night shifters a bit of entertainment.

Know your location, know your audience, familiarise yourself with the legal consequences and whatever the hell you do just stay away from the children, that kind of proximity to minors when it comes to anything with a sexual dynamic makes people hysterical, you can't really blame them and it's not the perception we want the public to have of the BDSM community.

Lastly you really need to think about your privacy, we live in a world where everyone has a camera in their pocket and we think nothing of snapping a photo of total strangers then sharing them with the world, it is not uncommon these days for scenes of public humiliation in a BDSM context to go viral, it happened again just a couple of weeks ago and hit national news. That could be you, the likely hood of being filmed or photographed by a member of the public, if not several, is extremely high. I work with young adults in sexual education and I am constantly having to remind them that it is not OK to take a photo of someone without their consent in any context!

While there is always potential to really genuinely upset people, most British people thrive on taking the good old fashioned piss out of each other, you have to consider the consequences of you becoming a viral joke and how that may affect your personal life. It's unlikely you can walk round tescos wearing a nappy even at 1 am, if you're wearing a mask to protect yourself from random photo snappers but now look like you're just going to rob the joint.

Personal, Professional & Emotional Implications

In my experience most people who seek a thrill from any kind of BDSM practice can get carried away and forget to think properly about the consequences, public humiliation is no exception yet it requires a lot more forethought.

There is quite a checklist of questions you need to ask yourself to make sure you have covered all the possibilities if you were to go viral and/or be recognised:

Do you have a partner? Are they likely to be be upset by this? Potentially leave?

Do you have children? What could happen there? They may be young now but are you comfortable with them possibly finding this photo/video of you in 10 years time? Can you have that conversation with them? How would you feel if your parents watched it?

How would you cope at work if your colleagues saw it? Does your employment contract have a morality cause which could mean your employers perceive this as a sackable offense? Do you have any back up plan in place if you were to lose your job?

As much as we like to think we're a progressive society, these kinds of activities still attract scandal and intrigue and it only takes a hot minute to get internet famous these days, that kind of infamy can have a knock on effect throughout every aspect of your life and have serious consequences for your mental health too.

If you have something or someone to lose and there isn't a way to properly protect your identity in your public humiliation fantasy, I would seriously reconsider a major compromise if not abandoning the idea entirely.

Controversy Surrounding Public BDSM Play

Any act of consensual BDSM play in public is going to cause controversy, particularly within the BDSM community itself, if you participate in that community you run the risk of alienating some of your peers.

For a long time the BDSM community have worked on public appearance and perception, we've tried hard to steer the public's thoughts away from images of dark moldy dungeons full of men and women in chains being tortured and abused like in the 70's sexploitation movies, towards a more informed view of sexual exploration in a fun and playful context, with absolute consent & trust in a caring healthy relationship, so there is concern among the community that committing BDSM acts in public is doing so without the public's consent and giving the opposite impression of what we have worked for so far. I think to some extent we have succeeded at improving public perception and whatever we as a community might think of the atrocities of the 50 shades trilogy, it certainly opened the public's mind and helped spread that acceptance a little further.

I really believe however, that there is an extremely fine line between upsetting the public therefore creating a bad image for the BDSM community and fighting for the acceptance of the BDSM community by accustomising the public to certain aspects of it and changing their perception further.

I want to clarify on this point by using an example of a public humiliation scene that went viral a couple of weeks ago, which involved a Mistress and a male submissive in a busy train station of London on a week day afternoon, in which she watched as as he knelt in the station wearing collar and lead holding a sign which said something along the lines of "on probation for Mistress". They attracted quite a crowd and video and photos were taken by several onlookers as station staff became involved.

There was huge backlash from the BDSM community on twitter, expressing disgrace that the couple had engaged in this activity without the public's consent, but honestly, I thought it was a modest and respectful display of female power, made even more powerful by the fact that the Mistress in question is a Woman of colour.

That is something that people often forget, BDSM can be political, it can represent serious changes that we as a society have failed to make but really need in many aspects of our life - feminism, race, gender and sexual orientation, general acceptance, empowerment, sexual health and rights, freedom of expression, a right to happiness... BDSM represents all of that and much more. So I don't think that the scene between this Mistress and her sub was a disgrace to the community or morally reprehensible, they were both fully and modestly clothed, there wasn't a child in sight, the only BDSM prop involved was a collar and lead which many into alternative fashion wear anyway and no physical activity ever occurred between them! They were not breaking the law in any way.

It was a strong, simple and silent display that showed that BDSM is empowering to both Mistress and submissive (yes, the submissive is just as empowered in that he has the strength to confront public dismay in order to show his admiration and dedication for his Mistress and for his own happiness and well being!) and that empowerment transcends race, gender, sexuality, social inequality and even the public's opinion. There is absolutely nothing wrong with showing the world that a strong black female has the right to power too or that a man has every right to be publicly sensitive and express his love for a woman, consent or not, these are the kind of messages that the world population needs to be absorbing.

I am not in any way condoning the performance of graphic sexual or violent acts, full nudity or gross exhibitionism to an unsuspecting non consenting public, I am in full agreement that this is a disrespectful way to behave to anyone and not the image that the BDSM community should have to suffer, but that shouldn't mean that every public BDSM play is off limits, the relationship aspect of BDSM is something to be incredibly proud of and that studies have shown should be a shining example of what to aim for in all relationships. If there were an official BDSM community manifesto, public acceptance would be high up on it, but in order to achieve that we have an important message to spread and we won't ever get to do that by hiding behind closed doors. We can be out and proud without being loud.

So with that being said, if you genuinely want to engage in public humiliation, ask yourself:

"What kind of message does this scene send to the public?"

Consider the damage you might do to the wider community yes, if you think that it could look damaging to BDSM participants as a whole, in even a minor way then you should think again, even if you don't care about the community, that same negative image could also lead to providers like myself being demonised and forced underground and that is an inherently more dangerous situation for both the providers and the clients.

HOWEVER, if you think your scene might send a politically empowering message without being offensive as defined by the law, then you go for it and fuck the back lash. The community needs more people like that whether they realise it or not. Acceptance has literally never been won by hiding in the closet.

Public humiliation is not as simple as playing in the dungeon because you will also have to consider everybody else's feelings, the potential for negative consequences increases exponentially, this decision requires some pretty careful and sound judgement on your part. Personally I wouldn't do a public humiliation session with anyone that is unable to demonstrate to Me that they have given this decision some very serious and considerable thought and even then I would also have to evaluate the risk to myself.

As exciting as the idea of public humiliation might seem it is not for everybody, before you get carried away make sure you consider all the implications for your own personal life, because being able to give fully informed consent to a situation that has the potential to cause some serious problems in your life is so, so important.

DJ x