Kinky Sex Always Means Consent First
Maxine Holloway’s “Ask First” campaign promotes explicit consent at Folsom Street Fair and other public BDSM events
Consent is kind of an obsession in BDSM communities, as well it should be. Knowing and respecting the boundaries of our partners is the single thing that makes a flogging scene into a hot, sensual experience, not an act of assault.
Unfortunately, consent isn’t always as simple and clean as negotiating a safeword, and at large public events like the world-famous Folsom Street Fair, the question of where the boundaries are can become downright complicated. Even worse, you’ll find that some people just don’t care and think that for the day, anything goes.
That’s the problem that sex worker, artist, and activist Maxine Holloway ran into several years ago when she went to Folsom carrying a box of her used panties. Her ass and breasts were repeatedly groped by passerby without so much as a quick nod or meaningful glance. She quickly went from excited and turned on to feeling dirty — and not in the good way.
Since then, Maxine has been promoting consent with the Ask First Campaign, about to celebrate its fourth year at Folsom Street Fair. The campaign primarily consists of passing out stickers and temporary tattoos that simply say “Ask First” or “Don’t Touch” to remind people that even at something as wild and free as Folsom, the rules of consent still apply. Flashing your tits or your cock doesn’t necessarily mean you want strangers walking up and grabbing them.
For such a simple campaign, it’s generated a surprising amount of controversy over the years, especially their attempts to get photographers to ask for permission before taking pictures. As we head towards the opening of Folsom this Sunday, I talked to Maxine about how Ask First is growing and how we can build a stronger consent culture.
You started Ask First when you went to Folsom Street Fair, dressed up to the nines, and had people groping you without permission. I remember you saying that it made you go from feeling sexy to kind of gross. Could you talk about that a little bit, and how it led to starting Ask First?
Every year I put a lot of effort into my Folsom attire, but this year I was feeling especially pleased with my classic yet perverse “cigarette girl”-inspired ensemble. I was eager to show off my kinky craftsmanship, pose for photos and sell my dirty knickers to the panty-sniffing enthusiasts.
I was tingling with excitement as I wove through the heavy crowds with my friends, but as I pushed through the crowds of people I suddenly felt a hand on my ass. I turned around and it was gone. A few minutes later, I felt another hand on my breast. I whipped around to see a group of men laughing and hurrying away. I tried to shake it off and continued on.
As I navigated through the masses, this continued to happen over and over and over. I know I was giving the public permission to interact with me by engaging and selling my underwear, but I didn’t agree to be touched or grabbed by complete strangers. This nuance was completely lost and ignored by the crowd. As the sun set, I was hurling curse words at entitled grabby men and protectively covering my chest as I walked by strangers. I went from feeling like ‘Best Dressed Pervert’ to feeling violated and unsafe.
This story is not unique. Things like this happen in various forms at Folsom, at parties, events, walking down the street all the time. Instead of boycotting these types of celebrations that we love so much, we decided to try and do something about it. We started the Ask First Campaign to give consent a visible presence at events like Folsom. The simple stickers can act as a reminder or a direction. We have recently started to provide ‘Don’t Touch’ stickers as well, because sometimes the verbal labor about interacting with one’s body is just too much, and should not be expected. We started off four years ago just passing out a few hundred stickers as we moved through the crowds and have grown to have a full Folsom booth that passes out about 10k stickers every year.
Consent is one of the things we talk about the most in BDSM communities. It’s almost like our holy of holies. Do you think that our communities fail to live up to their own principles of consent? If so, how do we need to improve?
I would say that our communities understand and value consent more than most. But the kinky BDSM community still has pertinent issues of abuse.
It’s not enough to wear a sticker and say, “The BDSM community loves consent!” We need to constantly work to create spaces that empower folks to feel supported advocating their boundaries, and to be believed when boundaries are violated. When you look at who is held accountable for abuse, who gets excused, and who feels comfortable speaking up, who does not, in any community — it is informed by power and social capital. You have to have power to abuse it. I think that our communities could navigate consent issues a lot better if we all acknowledged and addressed our own positionality to power and privilege. I also believe that if most men could stop being entitled douche-bags, everyone would be a LOT better off.
This is the fourth year that you’ve done Ask First at Folsom. Can you tell me what you do at your booth and what kind of responses you get?
The most frequent response we get at our Folsom Booth is “Thank you!” It is really cool to see people’s face light up with relief when they realize that harassment and abuse is not something that they must deal with at the fair, and that there are a lot of people here that have their back.
This year we have an amazing masochist who is asking Folsom attendees to lovingly staple money onto her body as a way to raise funds for the campaign.
Our booth distributes thousands of stickers, we host a photobooth where people can consensually get their photo taken in their Folsom best, and we have really creative performances. This year we have an amazing masochist who is asking Folsom attendees to lovingly staple money onto her body as a way to raise funds for the campaign. I’m always so grateful and amazed at the hot and creative ways people put their own kinks and perversions into these performances.
The most controversial part of the Ask First campaign has been your attempt to promote the idea that people shouldn’t shoot photographs without permission. That’s gotten a lot of resentment from both amateur and professional photographers over the years. What do you think the ideal approach to taking pictures in a public place is, especially now that everyone has a camera and video studio in their pocket?
It’s really interesting that this part of the campaign has caused so much controversy. But every Folsom season I get a flood of hate-mail saying that I am a “fascist” that “doesn’t understand how laws work”, as well as a lot other ‘descriptive’ words. To be clear, Ask First is not trying to change laws around photographing people in public, but is trying to change the social norms. Street photography has changed since the days of Gary Winnogrand taking photos on the streets of NYC in the 60’s.
The internet, cell phone cameras, and facial recognition technology are game changers when it comes to ethics and standards of street photography. The repercussions of someone being identified from an internet post and where that image can travel, deserves a more thoughtful conversation, rather than just reactive screams of “I have the right to do this!!!”
As photographers and artists who are witnessing our tools and culture change, the “how and why” we capture people’s image is necessary discourse.
Last year we made “Ask First’s Handy guide to consensual photography” which provided tips on how to take pictures while still being respectful:
A few ways to gain permission when photographing someone in a crowd:
1. Verbally ask and LISTEN to the response.
2. Nonverbal: Make eye contact, gesture with the camera, await a nod or smile. If they shake their head no or are unresponsive, DO NOT photograph anyway.
3. If someone is posing/hamming/performing it up for the cameras that is probably a green light to photograph; when that person stops engaging with the audience, stop shooting them.
4. You will probably not have much issue when taking general, wide-angle shots of the crowd. Keep your lens out of people’s personal space. I’m talking to you, upskirt dude, and the person who takes unsolicited breast-level shots as he walk through the crowd.
5. Be aware of privilege and power dynamics. Is the person you’re trying to photograph alone? Have you asked 20x already? Are you trying to convince them? Are you male and older?
What else are you doing beyond the annual booth at Folsom?
The Ask First Campaign now has ambassadors all over the country. The project has been making consent visible on college campuses, Pride celebrations, sex toy shops, lamp posts, school notebooks, kink events, underground parties, subway trains, mirrors in bar bathrooms, and more. Stickers can be found all over the Bay area, up and down the California coast, as well as at events in New York City, Boston, Texas, Wisconsin, North Dakota, Georgia, the UK, Frankfurt GE, and more.
Most of these connections were sparked by people seeing the Ask First project at the Folsom Street Fair. Last year we collaborated with sexual health peer educators at SFSU to make video about consent on college campuses. We are in the process of creating resources and workshops about consent, and hope to have those available early 2018. We are seeking folks and orgs that are interested in collaborating with us to make and/or distribute educational materials.
You have a fundraiser going on. What’s the money going to be used for?
All donations from this fundraiser go directly to printing the Ask First stickers, which are the heart and soul of this project. Right now we need at least $450 to provide this service to our community at the Folsom Street Fair, to cover as many of the 400k attendees in consent accessories. We are also looking to raise an additional $200 to cover the costs of running the booth, $650 total.
We hope to raise some additional funds this year so we can adequately supply Ask First stickers and consent information throughout the year. We are experiencing a growing demand for stickers to help make consent visible at all kinds of events, celebrations, conferences, campuses, and fairs. We would love to have the resources to be able supply them with more tools.
For more on the Ask First Campaign, check out their Instagram and Facebook pages.
