Camp Policies
Governance
Suspended Animation, ultimately, runs as a benevolent dictatorship. This means that at a high level Scout has final say in everything we do.
As a practical matter, we prefer a highly devolved system of governance whenever possible. We encourage people to take on large areas of responsibility and endeavor to interfere as little as possible in an area that someone has taken as their own.
We are in many ways a do-ocracy: if something isn’t already happening and you think it should - put yourself in charge of making it happen.
Suspended Animation is a limited liability corporation: Suspended Animation, LLC.
Intoxicating Substances
Many of us enjoy savoring a particularly fine cocktail or single malt, and we believe that alcohol and other intoxicating substances can be used responsibly within the applicable laws of Black Rock City. We find, however, that some intoxicating substances do not enhance group dynamics and are too often drama fuel and accident grease. Therefore, while we are not a dry organization, we strictly limit the use of alcohol and other intoxicants.
Compared to most organizations, and especially compared to most Burning Man camps, Suspended Animation is relatively strict about intoxication. If you prefer a more permissive environment, you’ll probably be happier elsewhere.
We consider intoxication as varying states described as:
Sober. You haven’t had an intoxicating substance for several hours, regardless of your tolerance. You feel no intoxication and there is no question that you could legally drive.
Unsober. You’ve been using intoxicating substances in a moderate and responsible fashion—what a responsible person might do at a party. You may or may not be legal to drive, but you aren’t obviously impaired.
Intoxicated. Anything more than unsober. You can’t legally drive, and it’s apparent to others that you’re intoxicated. Your judgment and other capacities are definitely impaired.
You are welcome to responsibly drink at camp. However, all use of intoxicants should be moderate.
At Burning Man, we typically have a few alcohol-related pods: cocktail pod, beer pod, etc. Experience has shown that our crew are mature, high-functioning adults who can responsibly handle alcohol-related pods. The existence of those pods, however, does not imply any relaxing of our intoxicating substances policies.
There are reasonable people who enjoy being intoxicated on occasion, and we have no problem with that. If you are such a person, you are welcome to partake somewhere else and come back to us at another time.
You may be unsober in camp, but you should never be unsober or intoxicated at any SA event or in the event space at any time.
Public events
The following policies apply to all SA event spaces, whether an event is in progress or not:
All crew working an event must be sober.
Bondage riders must be sober. Intake and riggers should both explicitly probe for substance use and turn away anyone who’s been using recently, even if they aren’t intoxicated.
Our intake forms ask about intoxication—ensure that each rider has confirmed in writing that they are sober.
If someone questions our substance policy, you can explain that we believe that intoxication is neither safe nor enjoyable during BDSM. As always, we will briefly explain our policies, but they are completely inflexible and non-negotiable.
No alcohol or other intoxicants may be brought into the event space. Door staff should feel free to smell beverage containers at their discretion.
Attendees may not be intoxicated. Door staff should turn away anyone who is visibly impaired regardless of whether they admit to being intoxicated, and regardless of whether they intend to participate or merely spectate.
Safety and Consent
Kink carries considerable potential for harm: physical injury, emotional damage, consent violation, legal exposure, and more. While no activity can be made completely risk-free, we believe that as responsible kinksters we have a moral obligation to protect ourselves and our partners from unreasonable and unnecessary risks.
As an organization, we are relentless about best practices for preventing harm. As individuals, we hold ourselves and each other to a world class standard. We understand that humans are imperfect, but we have a low tolerance for carelessness.
Safety and consent issues are uniquely complicated, and we don’t think it’s possible or desirable to have a rigid formulaic approach to handling incidents. Instead, this policy will explain the way we think about these issues and how we make decisions about them.
Risk and care
While reasonable people may have different thresholds of acceptable risk, we believe that as responsible kinksters we have a responsibility to avoid unnecessary risk in what we do. In addition, we believe that interactions with novices carry a moral obligation to treat them with care and to avoid exposing them to risks which they are not capable of fully understanding or consenting to.
Consent, specifically
Although consent injuries and violations are in many ways similar to other forms of harm, consent is a uniquely complicated topic. We therefore have some specific policies regarding consent:
We respect consent at all times—in our personal lives, as well as at SA events.
We seek affirmative, explicit consent for everything we do.
We negotiate carefully and strive to communicate our needs and limits clearly.
We define consent broadly and consider a broad range of inappropriate interactions to be consent violations.
We don’t tolerate even minor consent violations at any of our events.
We model excellent consent practices at all of our public events.
We do not non-consensually involve bystanders in our play, keeping in mind that different standards apply in different environments.
We have a consent contact (shay.sfblondie@gmail.com) who you can approach if you have consent concerns that you aren't comfortable coming to us about. Shay will listen to you in confidence and work with you to find an appropriate path forward.
When things go wrong
We believe that accidents and mistakes happen, and that anyone who practices kink for any period of time will both experience and cause harm. When we evaluate an incident, we try to distinguish between inevitable minor mishaps, incidents caused by bad luck, and incidents that indicate a serious problem.
As we try to figure out what happened and what we should do about it, we consider the following questions:
Was malice involved? Recklessness? Negligence?
As best we can tell, are the people involved acting in good faith and being truthful about what happened?
Was this an isolated incident, or part of a pattern?
Did the responsible people accept responsibility for what they did and try to make things right?
Is there a high risk that the incident will be recur?
Were all relevant risks fully disclosed?
Were the people involved following commonly accepted best practices?
Was there coercion or deception of any kind?
What power dynamic existed between the involved individuals, and was that power dynamic handled responsibly or used exploitatively?
Do we feel that the people involved are taking adequate steps to prevent future incidents?
In handling incidents, we struggle to balance the privacy concerns of the people involved with the need to warn the greater community about potentially dangerous individuals. Depending on the situation, steps that we might take include:
Mediating between the individuals involved to find a mutually acceptable path forward.
Advising an individual about how to avoid similar incidents in future.
Putting an individual on a probation plan intended to address the problems that led up to the incident.
Terminating an individual's membership in SA.
Quietly communicating concerns about an individual to other organizations that might come in contact with them.
Writing a public letter expressing our concerns.
Recusal
All major decisions related to safety and consent are made solely by Scout. In order to address conflicts of interest, we have a strict recusal policy. If Scout has an actual or potential conflict of interest with regard to a particular person, Scout will recuse himself from all major decisions involving that person. Upon recusal, Scout will delegate such decision-making to someone else.
Conflicts of interest always include dating or romantic relationships and may also include play relationships, business relationships, or interpersonal conflicts.
Our recusal policy is quite strict: the recused individual is not involved in any decisions about the subject and is frequently kept completely in the dark about any situations or decisions involving them.