Consent Policy, Protocols, and Procedure.
TempleNewYork is a living entity that has grown organically over the years and its organizers will treat this as a living document that is meant to also grow and evolve over time. If you are a consent advocate and have training and experience in community organizing in consent forward spaces, we would love to be in communication and work to improve in any way we can that aligns with our work within this organization.
By attending, teaching, and organizing educational workshops, events, and in private practice at Temple NY, you must be familiar with and agree to uphold the principles we have set down within our Consent Framework and agree to practice them to the best of your abilities.
Acknowledgement of Limitations:
We understand that there is a broad spectrum of risk profiles, negotiation styles, consent models, and interpersonal dynamics. This is NOT a comprehensive set of points to negotiate but a list that we see as fundamental to OUR risk profile and concepts of what Consent means and how it can be achieved temporarily for the sake of a scene or time in our space. Please note that this is how we expect people to communicate and behave within our space. We can not be held accountable for people’s behaviors outside of our space unless their actions are reported to us by way of our reporting team Safer Spaces Group who will communicate back to us with pertinent details.
Though we never identified as a “safe space”, we have adhered to the idea of creating “safer spaces” for risky behavior. We now see the need to outwardly identify as a Risk Space. Temple New York is a space to take risks; where risk must be assumed to exist on multiple levels. Though we believe in mitigating risks in many ways, we do not believe that risk can ever be mitigated out completely when participating in BDSM and Kink, nor do we want it to be. We also acknowledge that anytime humans interact, there is the possibility of beauty and connection as well as hurt and harm.
If there is anything that is not clear and comprehensive that leaves you questioning a policy or procedure, then it is your responsibility to reach out and communicate this to one of the core organizing members of the Temple NY team.
If any community member recognizes or witnesses another community member acting or behaving in a way that does not conform to these principles is strongly encouraged to communicate with that person directly, to communicate with the organizers involved, and/or to submit an Incident Report to our 3rd party Consent Circle in order to have this behavior in an official record so that our Accountability Circle can respond appropriately to better reduce harm and address issues promptly. It may seem like a small thing at first but without documented reports it can become very difficult to identify patterns of behavior early on, address them, and hopefully prevent anyone from being harmed. SAFETY REQUIRES COLLECTIVE EFFORT and INPUT.
How Do We Distinguish and Describe Consent:
Consent is only possible if all parties acknowledge their own PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY to manage and mitigate the many risks that are inherent to engaging in Kink/BDSM activities. That means reviewing and articulating your own particular risk profile, stating limits and boundaries, establishing communication modes, aftercare needs, and not leaving anything that is important to your well-being to be assumed by your partner(s).
Consent is only possible if all parties are INFORMED of-
what activities are “on the table,” meaning what the agreed upon possibilities are within the scene.
the associated risks of those activities including potential bodily and emotional injury and harm
all parties experience levels with these activities, meaning how long they’ve been engaging in these activities, how often they engage, how, where and with whom they gain education, training and practice etc.
Consent is only possible if on-going COMMUNICATION is considered.
Pre-scene negotiation is essential to establishing levels of trust between players and the parameters of the scene.
Consent can ALWAYS be retracted but should not be added to.
We do not allow mid-scene escalation which we refer to as “up negotiation”. Once a scene has started, do not request additional points of consent that were not agreed to before the scene gets started.
Midscene communications should also be negotiated: How will you communicate? How will you check-in with your play partner? How frequently do you need check-ins for this kind of scene? How will you communicate intensity of experience and sensation such as a 1-10 scale and how will you calibrate that interpersonal understanding? Will you use the traffic light system of green/yellow/red and what do those mean to each person involved?
Establish a SAFE WORD that is unambiguous and be clear about what exactly is required when that word gets called.
The Temple Safe Word is “RED”. If at any time a monitor or people around a scene hear someone call “RED” and their top or Dominant does not stop and address them directly, then we will step in to help that person.
Consent is only possible if AFTERCARE is considered and discussed.
Aftercare terms should be explicitly articulated by all parties involved. If there are any misalignments, those should be addressed and resolved in some meaningful way or the scene should not proceed.
Aftercare includes post-scene check-ins. We recommend 1-2 days after an experience with a stated availability for further communication once an experience has been more thoroughly processed.
Aftercare includes acknowledgment that if harm or injury should occur, that all parties are clear about what process each is willing to show up for and with what resources, AKA: Restoration and Repair.
How Do We Define Affirmative Consent?
Consent is a clear agreement between parties involved for a specific amount of time, the terms of which are communicated, heard, and agreed upon. If it is not agreed upon, it is not consensual.
Consent is on-going and must be kept up with mutual respect and communication and by remaining centered and present in the agreed upon terms of the scene.
Consent can ALWAYS be revoked at any time by any player if they feel that the scene is not going the way they are willing to engage in.
Consent only applies to established and well-communicated elements determined PRIOR to the scene beginning. Any ambiguity of thought or action should NOT come into the scene once it has begun. If you didn’t talk about it, DO NOT DO IT. Attempting to add new elements after the scene has started that were not explicitly discussed in advance is what we call “UP NEGOTIATION” and is a hard NO. Based on the dynamics of a scene, headspaces and body chemicals flowing, a person mid-scene is in our view “intoxicated” or better yet, “under the influence” and can not be expected to grant further consent. We consider this practice to be coercive, manipulative, and not within our code of conduct.