I have several hobbies that sometimes involve physical violence directed at myself or at others.

However, I’ve noticed an interesting pattern. To outside observers, these activities may appear physically violent and even, sometimes, shockingly painful. However, when these violent activities are done by skilled practitioners, and when they are done with the full enthusiastic consent of all parties, these activities lead to more care for ourselves and others.

Before I elaborate, I want to make one thing crystal clear. I am only talking about activities that involve the fully informed and active consent of all parties. Any of these activities, when a participant has not given their informed and active consent, is abuse. Such abuse is always and unambiguously wrong, and nothing that I say in this article applies to abuse.

With that said, here are some examples of violent activities that involve more care, not less care, for ourselves and each other.

Sport

Last weekend, I was having a cup of tea with one of my soccer teammates and talking about life. We were discussing some recent injuries that they had received in a soccer match and some ongoing injuries that they were managing. It was interesting to me that we both agreed on one thing: despite the fact that soccer brings bumps, bruises, scrapes, and occasionally more serious injuries, the fact that we experience these injuries makes us better at caring for our bodies. My teammate and I both found that after gaining some experience with soccer and how it interacts with our bodies, we become more skilled at listening to our bodies.

In Tackling Stereotype: Corporeal Reflexivity and Politics of Play in Women’s Rugby, Charlotte Branchu made a similar observation when discussing rugby:

The physicality of the game provides many sensations and affects. Once the initial feeling of “being hit by a fret train” is passed, players start to be able to distinguish different aches and pains in their bodies. […] They not only acquire a taste for the effects but also grow their ability to perceive and judge signals comingfrom their bodies. They grow an embodied knowledge of themselves. This knowledge is helpful to keep playing, particularly, since it allows players to take ownership over what they judge their bodies can take, and where their limits are.

Branchu also notes that many rugby players develop a “general distrust” of medical professionals and a “disregard for their recommendation”. This skepticism arises, in part, due to the rugby players’ extensive knowledge about their own bodies and how they ought to be treated.

Tattoos

Trust me when I say: tattoos hurt. The worst physical sensation that I have ever experienced was receiving my koi tattoo on my inner forearm. In particular, when the tattoo artist was applying the saturated colour to my inner wrist, it felt like somebody was vigorously rubbing sandpaper into a blistered and burned skin.

Aside from this short-term/acute pain, tattoos can also bring longer-term suffering via the risk of infection. I have never personally experienced an infection despite receiving extensive tattoos all over my body. However, no tattoo is risk-free.

The reason why infected tattoos are rare is precisely because tattoos bring a risk of infection. During the latter half of the 20th century, tattooing in Western countries was undergoing its renaissance and transforming from a practice associated with deviants and outlaws to a valid and sophisticated art form. However, there were many unsanitary practices—I shudder to think that, historically, many tattoo artists would lubricate their needles with their own sliver. These unsanitary practices were particularly salient among the general public, especially given hepatitis outbreaks and the HIV/AIDS crisis that were happening around the same time. This perception of unsanitary practice and disease risk motivated a number of city- and state-wide bans on tattooing in the United States.

It is precisely because of this risk of disease transmission and infection that tattoo artists today have become so skilled at disease prevention. In Bodies of Inscription: A Cultural History of the Modern Tattoo Community, Margot DeMello points out that all tattoo shops present a similar sensory environment. In particular, surfaces are very clean, and the air smells of disinfectant. This definitely applies to every tattoo shop that I have visited.

In The Other End of the Needle: Continuity and Change among Tattoo Workers, David C. Lane draws an explicit link between disease risk and skill in disease prevention:

Of the 31 people [tattoo artists] I spoke with, all but 2 (the shopless 2) had BBPs [bloodborne pathogens] certification. Many view this certification as an aspect of becoming a competent professional. […] established tattooists are constantly concerned with maintaining a sterile enough environment to tattoo. They understand this as a responsibility of the occupation, along with being knowledgeable about disease transmission. Most willingly take courses in BBPs [bloodborne pathogens], and many routinely take refresher courses.

Update 2025-05-25: In Blood and Lightning: On Becoming a Tattooer, tattooer and sociologist Dustin Kiskaddon reports on his experiences becoming and working as a tattooer. He reports that he learned to see objects in “red and green”, where red indicates an object that had been potentially contaminated with bodily fluids and green indicates a “clean” object. He also reports that he developed a very fine sense of the signs of a person being in distress, such as when people begin to turn pale, sweat, and/or breathe rapidly.

BDSM

BDSM (for the uninitiated: bondage, discipline, dominance, submission, sadism, and masochism) can appear very violent. BDSM practitioners often receive large wounds and deep bruises. For many practitioners, the pain is the point.

However, because BDSM involves such emotional and physical vulnerability, there has developed a strong culture of consent and care. This is considered a prime responsibility for practitioners, especially for the dominant partner(s).

In my book, I have written about my own experiences of this profound attention to safety and mutual care:

When done well, BDSM practices require a great amount of skill, education and expertise in both physical health and emotional regulation and well-being. When I experience BDSM practices at the hands of a skilled top, there is more consent and bodily autonomy than I experience even in non-sexual situations. These skills are usually not part of the repertoire of people who engage only in non-BDSM sex, despite the fact that they are valuable even in non-BDSM and non-sexual situations. In fact, I have felt safer being dominated by an experienced top than in non-BDSM sexual situations or even in non-sexual situations. I find this juxtaposition very funny. A massage therapist once told me, mindbogglingly, “You’re new to massages, so you don’t know what you like.” Contrast this with the top who, fucking me quite vigorously for much of the morning, would frequently check in to ask if I’m okay, if I need to slow down or take a break or try something different, or even just have a glass of water.