House rules

What are house rules?

House rules (Dutch: huisregels) are the rules the organizer of a play party, fetish club or dungeon sets for that night: what’s allowed, what isn’t, and what happens if you don’t stick to them. They cover consent, touching, photos, dress, alcohol and drugs. Anyone who comes in agrees to them. At bigger parties, dungeon monitors enforce them.

What house rules look like in practice

Like a list of ten to twenty sentences, usually on the website and again at the door.

A common set looks like this. You ask before you touch someone or someone’s things. You don’t interrupt a scene, not even if you think something is going wrong; for that you walk over to the DM. Phones stay in the locker. Joining in isn’t required, watching is fine, and standing and gawking on top of a couple is not. There is a dress code, there is a limit on drink, and drugs are out. After use, you disinfect the bench you were lying on.

For bigger parties the encyclopedia names two things that make the system airtight: monitors who enforce the rules, and a list of people who no longer get invited. That second list is the sharpest instrument an organization has. A violation carries no fine; it carries exclusion.

Why house rules exist

Because good intentions on a party night turn out not to be enough.

Susan Wright and colleagues, together with the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, surveyed 2,996 people from alt-sex communities. Of them, 26 percent experienced a boundary violation within that community. More interesting is the why: for the most recent violation, nearly 40 percent gave as the reason that someone was selfish or got carried away in the moment. So not malice, but a night that runs harder than the agreement.

House rules are built on exactly that. They turn what you’d arrange in a good conversation beforehand into something that holds for the whole room, including two people who met each other half an hour ago. And they give the organization grounds to step in without first working out who’s right.

What house rules do for you

They make an unfamiliar space readable. That is the whole gain, and it is largest for the newcomer.

• For anyone coming for the first time, the house rules tell you what’s expected, so you don’t spend the whole night guessing. Joining in is nowhere required either: watching is a full role.
• For anyone playing, they mean nobody touches your rope uninvited and there’s someone walking around who is allowed to step in.
• For the organization, they’re the only thing a decision at the door can rest on.

Rules on paper do nothing by themselves. In the follow-up study by Jessamyn Bowling and colleagues, among 2,888 people from the kink scene, 767 (25.56 percent) had experienced a boundary violation, and reporting it often stalled. Participants even advised each other to steer clear of the police and others with power. House rules are a minimum, not a guarantee.

How house rules get applied

Almost always in three layers, and the first layer you do yourself.

1. Beforehand. The rules are on the website or in the event. Reading them takes two minutes and saves a whole night of awkwardness.
2. At the door. At the entrance the core gets said again, sometimes with a wristband or a short briefing for anyone there for the first time.
3. In the room. The DM walks around, has a word, and can stop a scene. A serious violation means you leave, plus a place on the list of people no longer welcome.

There’s a legal side too. A club may decide for itself what applies within its walls, but not who gets in based on background. The Netherlands Institute for Human Rights (College voor de Rechten van de Mens) ruled in 2019 on a café in Haarlem that refused a man with dark skin, weighing that the café’s house rules gave no basis at all for treating unfamiliarity with a visitor as valid grounds for refusal. So house rules that aren’t written down can work against you at the door.

What house rules are not

“House rules take the excitement out of it.” The reverse. They take the negotiating away from the people least placed to negotiate, and that is exactly the group that otherwise stays home.

“What isn’t in them is allowed.” No. House rules are a floor for the room, not a replacement for consent between two people. That something isn’t banned anywhere says nothing about whether your play partner wants it.

“A club may refuse anyone it likes.” Not quite. Refusing on the basis of race when granting access to goods or services is prohibited under article 7 of the Dutch Equal Treatment Act, and a door policy written down nowhere does not hold up at the Institute.

What I see of it myself

I’m Victor, a gigolo, twenty-five years active in BDSM and trained as a psychotherapist. Women going to a night like that for the first time almost never ask me about the house rules. They ask about the dress.

Yet the answer to their real question, can I just walk around here without someone touching me, is written literally into those rules. So I send them the link beforehand and tell them they’re allowed to talk to the DM about anything. That last part is the bit people really don’t know: a DM isn’t only for emergencies.

In twenty-five years I’ve noticed that the parties with the longest house rules are rarely the strictest. They’ve usually just been at it the longest.

What you can do yourself

• Read the house rules before you go, not at the door, because there you’re standing with your coat in your hand and you read nothing anymore.
• When in doubt, ask the organization or the DM what a rule means exactly; that’s a normal question and nobody blinks at it.
• Don’t assume the same rules apply everywhere. Photos, sex and single visitors are handled differently at every club.
• Agree separately with your play partner what the two of you will do, because the house rules govern the room and not your scene.
• Report a boundary violation to the DM or the organization, even if you’re unsure; the exclusion list only works if people say something.
• If you can’t keep to a rule, leave of your own accord. That spares everyone a scene that has nothing to do with play.

More about house rules

On this site, the DM explains who enforces those rules on the night itself, and the article on consent as the backbone describes the framework of agreements that house rules are a public version of.

Off this site, the research by Wright and colleagues gives the most honest picture of how often things go wrong in this community and why, and ruling 2019-29 of the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights shows where a club’s freedom to set its own rules stops.

Where this fits on this site

If you’d like to go to a night like that once and you dread walking in alone that first time, it can also be done together. The page on scenarios describes the club and party night, including what we go over beforehand.

Sources

• Sexual Violence and Nonconsensual Experiences Among Alt-Sex Communities’ Members. Susan Wright, Jessamyn Bowling, Sean McCabe, J. Kevin Benson, Russell Stambaugh & Robert J. Cramer, Journal of Interpersonal Violence 37(23–24), NP21800–NP21825, 2022. International survey of 2,996 adults from alt-sex communities, in cooperation with the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom. Supplies the figure of 26 percent for boundary violations within the community against 34 percent sexual violence outside it, and the finding that nearly 40 percent gave as the reason for the most recent violation that someone was selfish or got carried away in the moment.
• Disclosing and Reporting of Consent Violations Among Kink Practitioners in the United States. Jessamyn Bowling, Susan Wright et al., Violence Against Women 30(6–7), 1453–1476, 2024. Survey of 2,888 people from the kink scene. Supplies that 767 of them (25.56 percent) experienced a boundary violation in a kink context, that reporting it differed by gender, sexual orientation and injury sustained, and that participants advised steering clear of the police and others in positions of power.
• Ruling 2019-29. Café XO Haarlem. Netherlands Institute for Human Rights, 2019. Supplies the rule that it is prohibited to discriminate on the basis of race when granting access to goods or services in the exercise of a profession or business (article 7(1)(a) of the Dutch Equal Treatment Act), and the finding that the café’s house rules gave no basis for treating unfamiliarity with visitors as grounds for refusal.
• Play party (BDSM). Wikipedia. Supplies the division of such a night into a social part, a changing area and a play space, the fact that joining in isn’t required and watching is an accepted role, that at bigger parties dungeon monitors enforce the rules on frameworks like safe, sane and consensual and risk-aware consensual kink, and the existence of a Do Not Invite List to keep persistent offenders out.

Related terms

• DM. The volunteer who enforces the house rules on the night itself.
• Dungeon. The space house rules are usually written for.
• Fetish party. The kind of night where you meet them at the door, dress code included.
• Consent. The framework of agreements between two people that house rules add to but don’t replace.
• Consent violation. What the exclusion list is meant for.
• Check-in. The short check during a scene that a DM wants to see happen.
• The 3 V’s. The framework many house rules fall back on.
• Munch. The gathering where the manners differ each time and are much lighter than here.
• Negotiation. What two people arrange for themselves within the room the house rules leave open.
• Pick-up play. Playing with someone you’ve just met, where the house rules replace part of the trust.
• Public play. What house rules exist for, with the legal limit alongside.
• Play party. The night itself, from the changing room to the question of why so little gets drunk.
• Protector. The person who guards on a small scale what house rules set down on a large one.
• Protocol. The same idea between two people rather than for a whole room.
• Duty of silence. A rule agreed between two people rather than for a whole room.