The BDSM Checklist as a Symbol of Consent and Trust in Deep End

What the BDSM Checklist Literally Is

The BDSM checklist in Deep End is a written document—a sheet of paper, "folded once and then again"—that Lukas Blomqvist hands to Scarlett Vandermeer on a tense Monday morning at the Avery Aquatic Center. It contains an inventory of sexual and kink-related activities, each with columns for indicating experience level and interest. Scarlett immediately recognizes its nature: "In my hand there is a list of the filthiest things two people can do to each other." The first item her eyes land on is "cum play," and the document also includes references to DDLG, anal fisting, cross mounting, chastity gear, and degradation play. Each partner fills out their own copy independently, indicating what they have done, what they want to try, and what constitutes a hard limit.

Where the Checklist Appears and Recurs

The checklist enters the narrative in Chapter 21, when Lukas gives Scarlett her blank copy. He reveals he has already completed his own and encourages her to be honest, promising he will never judge her desires. Scarlett spends two days reluctantly filling it out, guarding the completed document inside her phone case—"never too far from my body." In Chapter 22, they meet in a library study room to exchange lists. Lukas reads hers immediately, but Scarlett freezes and cannot bring herself to read his, a paralysis she explicitly compares to her inability to perform inward dives.

The checklist reappears in Chapter 23, when Scarlett finally reads Lukas's list alone in her bed. The lists prove to be "the mirror image" of each other—what she wants done to her, he wants to do. In Chapter 25, Lukas asks "You read the list?" and when she confirms, he praises her with "Good girl," converting the document's abstract negotiation into their first lived power-exchange scene. The checklist is never discarded; its contents continue to shape their physical relationship, referenced when Lukas declines intercourse without condoms despite their mutual interest, honoring the safer-sex boundaries established on the page.

How the Checklist's Meaning Evolves

Initially, the checklist functions as a practical tool—a way for two people with kink experience to establish compatibility before entering a dynamic. Lukas frames it in pragmatic terms: "I need to know what you need, Scarlett. And whether I can provide it for you." At this stage, the document is about information transfer.

Once completed, the checklist transforms into an object of intense vulnerability. Scarlett cannot read Lukas's list in his presence, seized by the same paralysis that grips her on the platform. The document becomes a mirror reflecting her deepest fear—"What if I'm not good enough"—not sexually, but existentially. The completed checklist sitting on the table represents the possibility of rejection, of desires judged incompatible.

After the exchange, the checklist's meaning shifts again. When Scarlett reads Lukas's list alone and discovers their near-perfect alignment, the document becomes proof of compatibility she did not dare hope for. Her reaction—"Oh, I think. Oh."—marks the moment intellectual negotiation becomes emotional certainty. The checklist has revealed something neither character explicitly articulated: that their desires were formed for each other.

By Chapter 25, the checklist has become a shared language. When Lukas asks "You read the list?" and Scarlett nods, the document no longer needs to be physically present. Its contents have been internalized. The checklist has done its work—establishing boundaries, surfacing limits, and creating a framework within which both partners can act freely.

Character Connections

Scarlett Vandermeer

The checklist illuminates Scarlett's relationship to her own desires. She has researched BDSM checklists before and considered showing them to her high school boyfriend Josh, but "realized someone who balked at the idea of nipple clamps would probably not enjoy reading a BDSM checklist that included stuff like anal fisting." The checklist, for Scarlett, represents a history of self-censorship—knowing what she wanted but lacking a partner with whom honesty was possible.

Completing the checklist forces Scarlett to articulate desires she has never stated aloud. She adds marginalia about being on birth control, places asterisks next to items requiring further discussion, and marks her experience level for each activity. The act of filling it out is an act of self-definition, a refusal to continue hiding. Keeping the completed list in her phone case signals that she now carries this honesty with her, physically close.

Lukas Blomqvist

For Lukas, the checklist represents accumulated hard-won knowledge. He reveals he "spent years with a partner uninterested in kink," and the checklist is his assurance that the same dynamic will not repeat. He has already completed his own copy before giving Scarlett hers, demonstrating readiness and clarity about his own desires. His willingness to share the document unsentimentally—"all business"—reflects his understanding that formal negotiation is not antithetical to intimacy but foundational to it.

Lukas also uses the checklist as a diagnostic tool. Before reading Scarlett's list, he asks about her father, correctly intuiting that her history of abuse would create specific triggers. The checklist does not replace conversation; it prompts it. When Scarlett names degradation as a hard limit, rooted in her father's verbal abuse, Lukas responds with immediate clarity: "I'm not interested in demeaning you in any way. Okay?" The checklist becomes the occasion for establishing not just sexual boundaries but emotional safety.

Thematic Connections

Consensual Power Exchange

The checklist is the mechanism through which consensual power exchange is formalized in the narrative. Scarlett and Lukas do not stumble into a dynamic; they negotiate it. The checklist ensures that the power Lukas will hold in their scenes is power Scarlett has explicitly authorized him to hold. This distinguishes their relationship from the controlling dynamic Scarlett endured with her father—the checklist is the antithesis of coercion, a document that makes consent visible and specific.

The checklist also surfaces the philosophical underpinnings of Scarlett's submission. Earlier in the novel, she explains to Pen that kink gives her "the ease of prenegotiating a social interaction. Having, for once, specific instructions." The checklist is the tangible version of that pre-negotiation. It provides the "instruction manual" that real life lacks.

Trust and Vulnerability

Exchanging checklists is an act of radical vulnerability. Each partner reveals their desires without knowing whether the other will accept them. Scarlett's inability to read Lukas's list in his presence dramatizes this vulnerability—she can expose herself but cannot bear to witness his reaction. The trust the checklist requires is not trust that the other person will like everything on the list; it is trust that they will not weaponize the list against its author.

Lukas earns that trust by reading Scarlett's list without judgment and by volunteering his own. He does not demand her list while withholding his. The exchange is reciprocal, and that reciprocity is what allows Scarlett to eventually read his list alone and fall asleep smiling.

Identity Beyond Athletic Achievement

The checklist operates entirely outside the athletic context that defines both characters publicly. Lukas is an Olympic gold medalist and swimming captain; Scarlett is a Division I diver. None of those identities matter when they sit across a library table, lists between them. The checklist creates a space where they are not athletes but simply two people attempting to be honest about what they want. This aligns with the novel's broader interest in what exists beyond the pool—the selves that remain when the records are set and the medals won.

Trauma and Recovery

The checklist intersects directly with Scarlett's trauma history. Her father's abuse was characterized by control without consent—tracking movements, monitoring interactions, isolating her from support. The checklist inverts that dynamic: Lukas will control Scarlett only within boundaries she has drawn, only during scenes she has agreed to, and only until she says stop. His question about her father is not prurient curiosity but operational necessity; understanding her triggers allows him to "steer away."

How the Checklist Functions as a Symbol

The BDSM checklist symbolizes more than sexual negotiation. It stands for the possibility of being fully known and fully accepted. Scarlett has spent years hiding her desires, convinced that revealing them would lead to rejection. The checklist forces revelation and, in doing so, dismantles her isolation. When Lukas reads her list and says "there is not a single thing you want that I don't want more," he is not merely expressing sexual compatibility; he is communicating that the self she has hidden is the self he wants.

The physicality of the checklist matters. It is a piece of paper, not a digital file. Scarlett can fold it, hide it in her phone case, feel its presence against her body. In a novel concerned with the body—its injuries, recoveries, pleasures, limits—the checklist is a body-adjacent object, a text that governs bodies but exists apart from them. It bridges language and physicality, word and flesh.

Study Questions

1. Why does Scarlett keep her completed checklist inside her phone case, and what does this detail reveal about her emotional state?

Answer: Scarlett keeps the checklist in her phone case because it represents a version of herself she has never shared with anyone—her desires made explicit and committed to paper. She describes "the sticky, toe-curling, happiness-creating heat that spreads through my limbs whenever I think about the list being there. All my secrets. All his questions. The potential for this improbable, dizzying, sharp thing between us, never too far from my body." The phone-case hiding place keeps the list physically close while still concealed, mirroring Scarlett's position between wanting to be known and fearing exposure. The checklist contains "all my secrets," yet she carries it through her daily life, suggesting that she is beginning to integrate her sexual identity rather than compartmentalizing it.

2. How does the checklist negotiation scene reframe control in a way that distinguishes Lukas from Scarlett's father?

Answer: The checklist negotiation makes consent structurally explicit. Scarlett's father controlled her without her agreement—tracking, monitoring, isolating, belittling. Lukas, by contrast, asks Scarlett to define the terms of his control in writing. When she names degradation as a hard limit rooted in her father's abuse, Lukas responds immediately: "I'm not interested in demeaning you in any way. Okay?" He does not argue, minimize, or probe for exceptions. The checklist creates a document that limits his power as much as it grants it. Her father's control was total and non-negotiable; Lukas's control is partial and entirely dependent on her continuing consent. The checklist is the structural evidence of that difference.

3. Why can Scarlett not read Lukas's list in his presence, and how does this paralysis connect to her diving trauma?

Answer: Scarlett explicitly links her inability to read Lukas's list to her inward-dive paralysis: "Pick his list up, I tell myself. And read it. Even out the playing field. But I can't. It's the same brand of bloodcurdling, muscle-freezing paralysis that seizes me when I attempt an inward dive." Both moments involve a fear of what happens next—on the platform, the fear of injury; in the library, the fear of rejection. In both cases, Scarlett's body refuses to move forward because the outcome is uncertain and the stakes feel catastrophic. Reading the list would mean discovering whether her desires are compatible with Lukas's, and her mind, conditioned by years of hiding, protects her by freezing. The connection suggests that her diving block and her sexual self-concealment share a psychological root: the terror of discovering that she is not good enough.

4. What does the near-perfect alignment of the two checklists suggest about the novel's view of compatibility, and how does this contrast with Lukas's previous relationship?

Answer: The revelation that the lists are "the mirror image" of each other—“What I want done to me, he wants to be the one doing it”—suggests that the novel views sexual compatibility as something discovered rather than constructed. Scarlett and Lukas did not negotiate a compromise; they discovered a pre-existing alignment. This contrasts sharply with Lukas's previous relationship with Pen, where they "cross-referenced" desires and found little overlap, leading Pen to try submission she "just hate[d]" and Lukas to suppress his needs entirely. The checklist alignment implies that some forms of compatibility cannot be manufactured through goodwill and effort—they either exist or they do not. The checklist, in this reading, is not a tool for creating compatibility but for revealing it.

Conclusion

The BDSM checklist in Deep End operates as both a practical negotiation tool and a richly layered symbol. It represents consent made tangible, vulnerability rewarded, and the possibility of being truly seen by another person. Through the checklist, Hazelwood dramatizes the work that precedes trust—the conversations, the written documents, the explicit articulation of limits—without making that work feel clinical or unromantic. Instead, the checklist becomes one of the novel's most intimate objects, a folded piece of paper that holds the blueprint for two people learning how to be honest with each other and with themselves.

For further analysis of related themes, see the discussions of consensual power exchange, trauma and recovery, and the character studies of Scarlett Vandermeer and Lukas Blomqvist.