That illustrates the difference between a rule and real communication quite well. People who have known each other’s reactions and boundaries for years may discuss a scene differently from two people who have just met. But the BDSM context itself does not remove the need for consent.
Other qualitative research on sexual communication also suggests that alternative sexual communities can develop more explicit scripts for negotiating consent, while traditional sexual scripts may leave less room for direct discussion. One study based on 51 in-depth interviews, for example, linked traditional scripts with less explicit communication and familiarity with alternative scripts with greater sexual agency and more discussion of consent. It was qualitative research, so it cannot tell us how common those patterns are in the wider population.
There is one reversal of the usual logic here that I particularly like.
We often assume that rules reduce freedom.
In some sexual contexts, clear boundaries may do the opposite: they remove some uncertainty and make it safer to play with the experience of losing control.
Consent does not prevent BDSM from being intense. It defines why that intensity remains a shared sexual practice in the first place.