Is BDSM legal in the US?

Answer 1

BDSM (Bondage and Domination, Sadism and Masochism -- or less commonly Slave and Master) is perfectly legal in the US provided both participants are of legal age, the sex is consensual and it's done in private, like any other kind of sex.

The "Top" -- the partner who does the tying up, or the dominating or the spanking or whatever -- is alwaysresponsible for the safety of the "bottom". There's nothing the bottom can do, nothing he or she can sign or say or agree to, that will relieve the Top of legal and moral responsibility for the safety and welfare of the bottom.

Answer 2

British law does not recognize the possibility of consenting to bodily injury. Such acts are illegal, even between consenting adults, and these laws are enforced. This leads to the situation that, while Great Britain and especially London are world centers of the closely-related fetish scene, there are only very private events for the BDSM scene which are in no way comparable to the German "Play party" scene.

Following Operation Spanner the European Court of Human Rights ruled in January 1999 in Laskey, Jaggard and Brown v United Kingdom that no violation of Article 8 occurred because the amount of physical or psychological harm that the law allows between any two people, even consenting adults, is to be determined by the jurisdiction the individuals live in, as it is the State's responsibility to balance the concerns of public health and well-being with the amount of control a State should be allowed to exercise over its citizens. In the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill 2007, the British Government cited the Spanner case as justification for criminalizing images of consensual acts, as part of its proposed criminalization of possession of "extreme pornography".

In May 2008 the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 was passed by the UK parliament. This new law makes it illegal in UK to possess certain types of sexually-explicit imagery. This law makes it an offence punishable by up to three years in prison for someone to possess what it calls "extreme images". An "extreme image" is defined as one which portrays in a realistic way any of:

• An act which threatens a person's life
• An act which results in or is likely to result in serious injury to a person's anus, breasts or genitals
• A sexual act with a corpse or an animal

  and the image...

• Is grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise of an obscene character
• Has been produced solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal

It is claimed that only a small number of images are intended to be caught by this law ("images" means both still photographs and video but excludes drawings and works of art). Unfortunately many of the terms used in the Act are vague and open to interpretation. So until some unfortunate people end up in court and a jury decides, it is difficult to give absolutely definitive advice on what the Act means and how it will be enforced. In addition, police investigations, seizure of computers etc can cause disruption and damage to people's lives even if no charges are brought.

You can find more information about BDSM legal situation in UK at the below site: