Allegations of sexual abuse and assault against the famous author Neil Gaiman first came to light in 2024 via the podcast Master, which presented the accounts of four women who had been sexually involved with Gaiman. An article in Vulture in early 2025 brought renewed attention to those allegations and included the stories of additional women.
Collectively, these accounts revealed a pattern: Gaiman seems to have sadistic dominant tendencies and picked vulnerable, mostly much younger, women to enact them with. In many of the cases, the women allege that they hated his treatment of them but felt compelled or coerced to consent. Gaiman’s position is that all of these relationships were entirely consensual. This raises important questions about the ethics of domination and submission in a BDSM dynamic.
Is Consent Enough?
Based on the details of the many alleged assaults, Gaiman seems to have had limited knowledge of or respect for foundational BDSM principles such as enthusiastic consent and negotiation. And yet he was engaging in some pretty intense BDSM with these women, including anal sex with no lube, impact, degradation, and more.
Additionally, most of the women were beholden to Gaiman either because he employed them or paid their rent or because they were starstruck and wanted a connection with him. As a result, many of the text messages and other communications from the women to Gaiman gave the impression that they were eager participants. Given all this, is consent enough?
The short answer is no. An ethical dominant should always consider the context in which consent is given and whether there are any extenuating circumstances that might make someone’s consent suspect. That said, submissives bear some responsibility for their own well-being.
What Are a Dominant’s Responsibilities?
In BDSM relationships, it’s the dominant partner’s responsibility to ensure ongoing, enthusiastic consent and to be acutely aware of their submissive partner’s well-being. Even if a submissive initially consents or appears to consent, the dominant should:
- Establish and get consent for anything that they might want to do in the scene and during aftercare.
- Regularly check to reaffirm consent.
- Stick to activities that have been discussed in advance.
- Pay attention to non-verbal cues that indicate discomfort or distress.
- Ensure clear communication about boundaries and expectations.
- Recognize the power imbalance and potential for coercion.
The last point becomes even more important in situations where there is a significant real-life power imbalance, as was the case with many of the women who have accused Gaiman of assault. When someone is dependent on a dominant partner for employment, housing, and so on, they may feel pressured to consent due to fear or a desire to please, even if they’re uncomfortable. This is why it’s crucial for a dominant partner to be aware that apparent compliance doesn’t always equal enthusiastic consent. In these sorts of relationships where there’s an extreme power imbalance, communication can be particularly confusing or misleading. Actions may say something different than words, and vice versa.
Additionally, a dominant should consider any of the following to be as serious as a safeword and should immediately stop and move on to aftercare and a check-in:
- The submissive shows signs of physical harm (e.g., difficulty breathing, fainting, or injury).
- The sub appears emotionally overwhelmed, dissociates, or experiences visible distress.
- The submissive seems hesitant, unsure, or unable to provide enthusiastic consent in the moment.
- An activity unexpectedly triggers an intense negative emotional response.
- The submissive is under the influence, overly fatigued, or otherwise impaired.
- The dominant feels uncertain, overwhelmed, angry, or incapable of maintaining control or care.
What Are a Submissive’s Responsibilities?
Submissives are equal partners in BDSM dynamics and are responsible for communicating with the dom as much as they can. Submissives should strive to do the following:
- Negotiate honestly by clearly communicating limits, fantasies, and needs to the dominant. For instance, if a sub wants to be humiliated but doesn’t like certain types of dehumanizing language, they should specify that (e.g., “I don’t like being called a stupid piece of shit.”) If a sub isn’t sure what their limits are regarding certain activities, they should say that, too.
- Use agreed-upon safewords, the most common being “no,” “stop,” and “red.” Consider adding an agreed upon “yellow” safeword to provide a way for the sub to stop an activity without stopping the scene.
- Be aware of their own emotional state and stop the scene if negative emotions become too overwhelming. If the scene is making a sub feel mentally terrible, they are under no obligation to power through it.
- Take responsibility for their part if something goes wrong in a scene due to not using the safeword or not making limits clear. While ethical doms should ideally check in with the sub if anything seems amiss, doms aren’t mind readers and can’t be expected to guess a sub’s every emotion. Subs need to communicate in some way, if they’re able to. If they don’t and come to regret the scene later, that’s not solely the dom’s fault.
Of course, if a predatory dom doesn’t care about consent and intends to cause harm, or a manipulative sub purposely fails to communicate, all the guidelines in the world aren’t going to stop them. But for doms and subs who mean well and want to behave ethically, these guidelines are a good starting point.
It’s worth noting that although we’ve presented these responsibilities in BDSM terms, people in vanilla relationships often fail to meet these guidelines—and perhaps have even less awareness of them—than kinksters. Ultimately, ensuring sex and consent are ethical applies to anyone engaged in a sexual situation regardless of how kinky it is.