This is an expansion on a concept that originates (to my knowledge) with a longtime friend and former teaching partner, Hedwig. In February 2025, Hedwig posted on Instagram about a new term: consentwashing. With their permission, I’ve expanded on the idea here.
For further context on how this plays out, we strongly recommend viewing the videos created by InRopesToo.
What is Consentwashing?
We talk a lot in kink spaces about consent culture, but rarely about what happens when it’s used as marketing. So let’s name something that’s been quietly operating in the background for a long time: consentwashing.
There’s pinkwashing (using LGBTQ+ centered branding to cover for harmful practices), greenwashing (claiming eco-friendliness to boost a brand), and sportswashing (using major sports sponsorships to distract from abuses).
Add to that list: consentwashing: when someone uses the language, aesthetics, or social capital of consent culture to distract from a track record of harm.
What Consentwashing Looks Like
We see it when a known consent violator gets booked to teach a class. It happens over and over. Sometimes the organizers didn’t know – someone vouched for the person or they saw where else the instructor has taught and that was enough. Or maybe they’ve heard one story, not the full scope. Maybe they chose not to ask too many questions.
We’ve all been there. Many of us have been fooled. Many of us have made mistakes! This post isn’t about calling out individual missteps – it’s about naming a pattern that depends on silence and hat gets stronger when no one talks about it.
When organizers are confronted directly with clear, repeated, and credible reports of harm – and still choose to book someone, or even position themselves as neutral “diplomats” in a community conflict – that’s something other than a mistake. That’s complicity. Whether it’s intentional or not, it functions as a tool of rape culture within kink, rope, and leather spaces where consent is supposed to be essential.
Consent as Branding
When a presenter is booked, there’s an implicit message: We’ve vetted this person. We trust them. You can, too.
My argument isn’t that we should never book someone who’s injured others – it’s that as educators and producers, we have a responsibility to seek information, ask questions, and decide if we’re willing to put our reputation behind the person in question. We need to be able to answer “Why did you book this instructor, given ______?” with a meaningful, considered, and specific answer.
Why? Because for someone with a history of unresolved harms, every new platform helps them build “critical mass” – enough appearances, enough bookings, enough logos on their CV that people stop asking hard questions. “They taught at Devil Mask Studio,” someone will say. “So they must be safe, right?”
That assumption – that public teaching equals private accountability – is false. And it’s dangerous.
It’s how people bypass the actual work of making amends: building trust, taking responsibility, working with those they’ve harmed (if that’s something the harmed party wants), and stepping back from leadership where needed. Consentwashing lets people skip all of that and still appear rehabilitated. Still in the loop. Still successful. Still booked and busy.
What It Costs Us
Consentwashing doesn’t just make space for perpetrators. It actively costs us survivors, witnesses, whistleblowers, and anyone trying to set a safer standard. People leave. People burn out. People stop talking because they get tired of not being believed – or worse, getting blamed for disrupting the community.
This is a loss. Every time. We lose institutional memory. We lose accountability. We lose trust. We lose people who care deeply about their communities.
What We Can Do
- Ask hard questions.
Don’t rely on a single data point to book a presenter. Do your own digging – check with Kink Producer Network Group, the Rope Bottoms’ Share Group, and other sources of collective memory. - Focus on actions.
It can be tempting to say “it’s been years, I believe they’ve changed.” But this isn’t about ‘time served,’ it’s the organic process of making amends. For some folks that takes weeks, for some folks it won’t happen given years.
The single biggest indicator of change isn’t the passage of time, it’s owning up to our behavior and apologizing. - Pause and listen when someone brings us a concern – especially if we’re being asked to act.
Our external read on the situation may be very different from the experiences of folks directly harmed. See above re: the assumption that “old news” is resolved. - Be honest about what we know.
Transparency is huge; share information freely. - Understand the difference between making a mistake and creating a pattern.
One is human. The other is systemic harm. - Apologize when we don’t hit the mark.
We are all doing our best as imperfect humans with imperfect information. But the flip side is this: when we mess up, we need to own it.
None of us are perfect. None of us get it right every time. But we can start by calling this thing what it is: consentwashing.
If we can name it, we can start addressing it.
What Does This Mean For Devil Mask Studio?
We wouldn’t be us without an action plan. We can’t promise to always have perfect information but we can promise to actively seek information and to listen if you ping us to say “Hey, I want to make sure you know about ______.”
Here’s how we’re committing to fight consentwashing:
- Where we have prior knowledge, we will not book presenters with unresolved patterns of injury/harm.
- When we receive reports after an event is booked, we will work with the injured parties to find a resolution that most preserves their sense of safety and agency. We will not re-book those presenters without confirmation the harm is resolved.
- We will share our knowledge with other organizers & producers (with the consent of affected parties).
- If we see peers participating in consentwashing we will:
- Contact them to ensure they’re aware of ongoing issues
- If they aren’t aware, we will:
- Support them in finding a path forward that most preserves the sense of safety and agency of those harmed.
- If they are aware, we will:
- Decline to work with those organizers to book or produce tours
- Decline to book those organizers as presenters
- If asked, discourage others from visiting or participating in their spaces.
xo
Nora