What ‘Babygirl’ gets right and wrong about dom/sub kink

Warning: The following contains spoilers from the movie “Babygirl.”

“Babygirl” opens on a stunning Romy (Nicole Kidman) riding her husband (Antonio Banderas), culminating in what appears to be a classic, cinematic, simultaneous orgasm. For someone watching the film with an eye for its accuracy about sex, this was an effective misdirection: Only 10% to 20% of us with female anatomy can climax like this. I didn’t know yet if it was the movie or the character that was lying.

Screenwriter/director Halina Reijn immediately resolves any uncertainty: when her husband disappears, Romy sneaks into the other room, lies on her stomach with her hands between her legs, and ends a video clip with subtle Dom/Sub dialogue. Our protagonist is not completely sexually naive, although she is clearly unsatisfied.

“Babygirl” follows Romy, a strong executive, who begins an affair with Samuel (Harris Dickinson), her much younger intern – where he assumes a dominant role and unlocks her submissive urges. And as part of its exploration of the couple’s fraught power dynamic, the film heavily features a popular erotic trope: questionable consent.

If you’ve ever watched a sex scene and asked yourself, “Am I okay with this…?” there’s a good chance you witnessed questionable consent. One of the creepiest, most tantalizing examples can be found in Adrian Lyne’s 2002 film “Unfaithful,” in which Diane Lane’s unfaithful housewife physically resists her younger lover, played by Olivier Martinez, as she tries to end their affair.

“Stop it. I can’t. I can’t,” she says. “Do you want to f— me? I want you to.”

“Say it,” he replies.

“I want you to.”

Questionable consent refers to scenarios where a character’s agreement to engage in sexual activity is unclear, coerced, or given under conditions that erode their genuine, freely given consent. Power imbalance, psychological manipulation and/or infidelity are often at play. When done well, it’s incredibly evocative. But it is necessary to see first that the character who will be consenting will ultimately want what they are being pushed for. In “Babygirl,” our leading lady’s wishes are carefully bestowed upon us early on. She is the “good girl” who indulges in the “bad thing”. Taboo – a powerful driving force of sexual impulse across countless fantasies – is evident here.

It is important to note that within any ethical BDSM practice, clear conversations about boundaries, triggers and safe words are required before anything can begin. But what’s intriguing about “Babygirl,” where the concept of a safe word doesn’t emerge until halfway through, is its interest in portraying characters who aren’t seasoned practitioners of such power dynamics. Although the buzzworthy trailer for the film found Dickinson at his most confident and commanding, “Babygirl,” for example, shows his character fumbling when Kidman invites him to take the reins.

Take Romy and Samuel’s first sexual encounter in a hotel room. Instead of arriving in full Dom Daddy regalia with a scary suitcase full of paddles and Wartenberg wheels, he shows up in a hoodie with a plastic bag, and he greets her with, “Oh, you’re here.”

Romy, for her part, tries to take charge and return to her role as his boss and elder—a defensive move to avoid the vulnerability of asking for what she really wants.

Here, “Babygirl” seems to understand a common reality behind the kink: many capable, strong women (and men) want to turn off their brains and fully submit to the real Dom. It also highlights a common limitation – that for skilled dominance, emotional intelligence is as, if not more, important than physical talent.

The film also understands the power of unlocking such dynamics without being useless in terms of visual detail. It doesn’t need to, as Romy’s low, primal, guttural moan at the sequence’s climax speaks volumes. This experience is new and it is worldwide. She melts into tears and we witness a moment that looks like aftercare (although the characters lack the vocabulary to call it that). Dickinson holds Kidman as she cries, providing a much-needed safe space.

It is only later, when the spirals of the affair and the power dynamics of Romy and Samuel’s sexual relationship spill over into other parts of the characters’ lives, that “Babygirl’s” handling of sex can give pause. When Romy confesses her affair to her husband and glosses over the details, she pathologizes her kink with lines like, “I want to be normal” and “I’ve tried all this therapy…” For a moment, I worried about the implication that there a causal link between trauma and kink. To clarify: While safe kinky play is an excellent forum for navigating and even healing trauma, it’s a harmful stereotype to assume that only “cracked” people are attracted to kink.

Romy goes on to say, “It’s not about a safe word or a safe place or consent or the kink … there has to be danger. Things have to be at stake.” But she hadn’t explored these dynamics safely or within limits.How could she know that she could only indulge in these fantasies in a problematic context?

As with the opening, what may at first seem like a misstep is merely the setup for an impending payoff—in this case, by presenting and then challenging societal assumptions. By the end of the film, it is clear that Romy’s harmful attitude towards her kink led to her infidelity. Through the crisis of “Babygirl”, however, she learns to embrace her desires: unlike Nora in “A Doll’s House” or the title character in “Hedda Gabler” (both subtly referenced in the film), she repairs her marriage and decides to stay, but not by suppressing her forbidden fantasies. “If I’m going to be humiliated,” she tells a menacing colleague in one of the film’s delicious final lines, “I’m going to pay someone to do it.”

Ramadei is a certified sex educator, intimacy counselor and relationship coach best known for hosting the feminist comedy podcast Girls on Pislandrn.