A woman has accused a man with whom she was in a BDSM relationship of raping her, with the trial being held in the New Plymouth District Court.
A woman has accused a man with whom she was in a BDSM relationship of raping her, with the trial being held in the New Plymouth District Court.
WARNING: This story details rape allegations and may be distressing for some readers.
The rules of a couple’s relationship are being examined amid allegations he raped her during “normal” sex and ignored their safe word during a BDSM “spanking”.
The man is also being accused of performing a “goldenshower” on the woman against her wishes.
He now faced charges of rape, doing an indecent act and two of assaulting a person with a blunt instrument in a judge-alone trial before Judge Tony Greig.
A recorded interview with police, which took place in May 2022, was played and in it the woman said she and the man connected through a dating website in 2020 before meeting in person at a sporting event.
The man cannot be named to protect the woman’s automatic right to name suppression.
They began dating in June 2020 and the alleged rape occurred around July or August 2021, with the relationship ending shortly after.
She said that while they were in a relationship, they had a BDSM, or bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, sadism and masochism, verbal agreement.
The man was considered the “dom” and she was his “sub”, she said.
They also had another dynamic to the relationship, which she referred to as a DDLG, or “daddy dom, little girl”.
She preferred this role play to the BDSM and said it took place intimately and in their day-to-day lives as she liked to behave like a child.
A safe word: Pudding
The Taranaki couple used “pudding” as their safe word and had a “kit” of items they used, including sex toys, floggers, paddles and ball gags.
She said she was not allowed to use the items on him, he would not discuss with her what he planned to use on each occasion and she was often blindfolded and restrained.
She alleged that as their relationship continued, it started to deteriorate.
The trial is being heard in the New Plymouth District Court. Photo / Tara Shaskey
He would control her money and who she spoke to, treated her like a slave and “didn’t let her use safe words properly”, she alleged.
In her police interview, she said at one point the man used a piece of timber, which was not in their kit, to “spank” her.
It became painful and she allegedly repeated “pudding” several times but the man did not stop.
“My bum cheeks were black and blue,” she told the police, alleging that she had seen him grinning when she removed her blindfold.
She alleged he also assaulted her with a metal backscratcher in similar circumstances and burned her breast with candle wax.
‘It was gross’
The woman further claimed that the man urinated on her, referring to the practice as a “golden shower”, and that it was not something she had agreed to.
“It was pee, it was gross,” she said, claiming he did it despite knowing she “hated it”.
On the occasion when the man allegedly raped her, she said he had asked her for sex but she declined.
She alleged he became angry and yelled, so she “gave in” because she was scared of him.
In her evidence in chief, the woman told Crown prosecutor Jacob Bourke that the intercourse became painful and she asked him to “stop” at least three times but he ignored her.
She claimed the sex was not in the context of BDSM and they had not discussed the use of safe words when they were having “normal” intercourse.
But under questioning by the defence, the man’s lawyer Nina Laird pointed out the woman had told a police officer their safe word was often used outside of the BDSM play.
A second safe word
Laird also suggested there was a second safe word the couple used – “red” – which the woman denied.
The woman claimed that after they broke up, the man incessantly tried to contact her.
But Laird suggested it was the woman who had been trying to contact the man, and he had blocked her and gone to the police multiple times to complain about her frequent contact and online behaviour toward him, which led to her receiving a warning from police.
The woman was questioned about the man having allegedly cheated on her with his ex.
She accepted she believed he had cheated and that it had upset her. The woman also acknowledged that it had occurred around the time of the alleged rape.
Laird suggested the woman had made up the allegations to “pay for the way he treated you”, or for attention, which the woman denied.
There was only one time the woman had asked the man to stop during sex because of it hurting, Laird said, indicating that occasion involved a chair and the woman’s neck becoming sore.
Laird said her client had stopped immediately.
“I do remember that, but that was not the time,” the woman responded.
Laird put to the woman that she did not ask him to stop on the occasion she alleged she was raped.
She also suggested the woman had wanted the golden shower and that the man had only ever used paddles and floggers to spank her, all of which the woman rejected.
The trial continues.
Tara Shaskey joined NZME in 2022 and is currently an assistant editor and reporter for the Open Justice team. She has been a reporter since 2014 and previously worked at Stuff covering crime and justice, arts and entertainment, and Māori issues.
