Project "DAU" and BDSM

To compare the 'DAU' project to ethical, consensual BDSM is, in my view, to completely misunderstand how consent works in BDSM and how psychological pressure can operate.

In BDSM, consent is not a once-and-for-all license for everything that happens. It is informed, specific, and revocable. There are pre-agreed boundaries, ways to stop what is happening, and accountability for the partner's well-being after the scene.

Now, a question for 'DAU': what exactly did the participants know in advance about how far the experiment could go? Did a person genuinely consent to specific forms of psychological pressure, isolation, sexualization, and the destruction of familiar social roles and boundaries—or did they consent to participate in an art project, only to discover once inside that the rules were far broader than they had anticipated?

To me, this is a fundamental difference.

And it is especially bizarre to compare 'DAU' to BDSM when we are talking not about two equal partners who can stop a scene at any moment, but about a system with a hierarchy, dependency, and a massive power imbalance. If a person lives and works within this system, depends on it materially and socially, exists in isolation, and gradually internalizes its rules more and more, a formal initial 'I agree' tells us absolutely nothing about the quality of the subsequent consent.

There is one more thing I completely fail to understand in these arguments: where is the aftercare?

In BDSM, caring for a person's state after an intense scene is not a sentimental add-on; it is part of the core ethics of the practice. What happened to people after the harrowing experiences in 'DAU'? Who was responsible for the consequences? Who helped a person return from this artificial reality to normal life? Or is it assumed that since the 'I agree to the experiment' box was checked at some point, the art project owes no one anything from then on?

And finally, you cannot lump all the participants together. For an invited star who came for a few days, and for someone who lived inside the system for months, worked there, and depended on it, the word 'consent' could mean entirely different things.

That is why for me, 'DAU' is not a question of whether the participants were adult enough to sign a paper.

The question is different: can consent be considered truly voluntary if it was given before the person knew the real price of participation?

And that is a far cry from BDSM.