On the matter of safewords
February 27th, 2009 | Author: Zille
So, I’m being a wee bit naughty over in Fetlife. Of course, I blame kaya — she’s a bad influence on me! 
Basically, this person posted in one of the spanking groups asking if safewords should be allowed for “true punishment.”
Heh. Of course, I do not have a safeword at any time, and the very last place my Master would consider letting me have one is during punishment! I mean, how handy to hand a submissive a key to ending the punishment! “Yes, when you don’t like what’s going on anymore, just say ‘red,’ or ’safeword,’ or ‘banana,’ and I’ll stop punishing you and give you a cuddle!”
By the time I got around to reading the post, most people had commented saying that “safewords are essential! You should never play with anyone who doesn’t let you have a safeword ever or Bad Things Will Happen!”
At which point, the smart thing is to back away slowly and go about my day. Sometimes the smart thing is no fun, though!
I think the real problem is the British CP history versus the American BDSM scene. When my Master went to school, the teacher could cane you or use a strap on you, and there were no safewords — it was just assumed the teacher was a responsible adult and wouldn’t injure you or unduly distress you more than is normal for being punished.
In the BDSM scene, especially in the U.S. I assume, however, it’s assumed that no one can be a mature adult and make sure that they do not injure or unduly distress another mature and consenting adult. No, people are assumed to be unable to control themselves, and the only way to prevent injury is to make Rules. Like, “There must be a safeword before anyone can lift their hand to administer a spanking!” Or, “You can’t even have a glass of wine before a scene, because that would be irresponsible and BAD!” Or, the reason we don’t often go out to the local dungeon, “You must use safer sex (that is, a condom!) at all times, even if you are with your fluid-bonded life-partner with whom you’ve been monogamous for years!”
Argh, it drives me nuts! I agree that when people first get into this sort of thing, it’s safest to understand the idea of safewords (I mean, I think it’s a great idea! Whomever came up with it is a genius!) and to use them. But my Master and I are not newbies — we’d both been around the block a few times (especially him! He seems to have played with half the female inhabitants of this city!) before we got together, and we have based this relationship from the start on complete honesty and trust — or, “transparency,” a term much in vogue in politics today (and for good reason).
He told me from the beginning that I wouldn’t have a safeword and wouldn’t need one. And he’s been right: more often has he left me wanting more, esp. in our first couple years together, than pushed me to the limits. He learned about me and my body and emotions, and he taught me how to communicate honestly, and how not to do stupid things like not say if I can’t handle something because I want to look braver/more impressive a masochist/whatever.
It’s because we’ve grown to understand and respect each other so well that we can now really start exploring punishment and serious limit pushing. And you lot know I’m over the moon about that! 
Americans really seem to want to tell other people how they need to run their lives, and a lot of American BDSM-ers really seem to have that bad quality in spades. They have decided that the only safe way to do kinky stuff is to do it this way, and lord help you if you want to do it that way!
I think that’s probably why spankos and Domestic Discipline/Head Of House people look down on BDSM-ers so much (and why fetish people have the attitude of, “BDSM/leather folk — oh, those people who never have fun!”) and I totally understand it — as much as it annoys me, because that is where I come from, and I’m not like that!
I mean, most Americans these days haven’t been spanked in their lives, never even got Mother’s peach switch when they were a kid, or a paddling at school. I certainly never did — my parents were entirely against any form of CP (and there’s a story about that I need to tell you lot sometime) — and look what little good it did me! However, for all the lack of discipline in my life, at least now I respect discipline and CP. But I imagine that a Brit or anyone who grew up with CP or at least spankings can’t do anything but look down their nose at the silly BDSM-ers trying to make up all these rules, like no one ever did successful spankings before them, and just sniff and move on to more interesting things.
As I’ve said in the group, I trust my Master not because I have a safeword, but because he is careful, considerate (as in he considers matters and their ramifications), and errs on the side of caution. If I didn’t trust my Master so entirely, I wouldn’t trust him to correct my behaviour in the first place — so for me, the idea of being in a relationship that has real punishment means that you don’t need safewords: I’d never let anyone punish me whom I felt I needed a safeword with in the first place! (This isn’t to say that if my Master lets me play with other people, I wouldn’t want to do that — but play and punishment are two entirely different things!
As I pointed out in the group, true punishment is a serious and sober (no, not about alcohol, I mean: “marked by temperance, moderation, or seriousness; subdued in tone or colour; showing no excessive or extreme qualities of fancy, emotion, or prejudice”) thing and playing punishment games (of the “Oooh, I’ve been a bad boy/girl and I need to be puuuuunished!” variety) is not the same thing at all, and people who want to get into that sort of thing need to be aware of that. “Punishment,” is certainly no excuse for some Top to decide s/he can get away with anything — not some loop-hole like, “Oh, if I decide to punish my bottom I can do whatever I like!” And likewise submissives shouldn’t feel that they can be bad to get attention and playtime!
Well, someone has already responded by saying:
I feel safewords are essential regardless of the how long you’ve known your partner or the situation. What we do isn’t a game and people can, and do, get hurt. It’s not intentional, but we’re talking about human beings using force, and accidents happen.
I wouldn’t use a safeword because a spanking hurt; I would consider that a breach of consent and trust, etc. But other things can happen…respiratory issues, leg or abdominal cramps, and even severe emotional distress. We’re complicated beings and trauma and distress can be inadvertently triggered.
I have tremendous respect for Tops and Doms who always use safewords. If someone says they don’t need one, I question whether they consider themselves infallible…and that’s dangerous, IMO.
And I’ve had to admit that, yes, they can feel that way, and have that opinion. But you really shouldn’t judge what other people do by your own proclivities and needs. I’ve added:
My Master and I don’t need safewords because if I have respiratory issues, leg or abdominal cramps, or severe emotional distress, I just say, “Master, there’s a problem you need to know about,” and he ends the scene.
I have to request scenes with him where I am allowed to say, “No, please don’t do that!” because it turns me on. And even in a scene like that, if I said, “I can’t breath–!” he would stop immediately.
For us, if I lied about not being able to breath, it would be “a breach of consent and trust.” If I didn’t inform him that I had severe cramps or undue distress, it would also be “a breach of consent and trust” — I am expected to be honest about the good and the bad. For the times when I’m flying high on endorphins and might not notice something — that’s where I trust him, and he has never let me down.
And I don’t think he will let me down (obviously!) not because he’s an infallible god-like person (well, he is pretty god-like, mmm-hhhm!) but simply because he loves me, as a wife, a slave, and his little girl, and won’t hurt me in a bad way. And to that end, he does that whole “erring on the side of caution” thing. One trusts parents to punish their children appropriately — why can it be assumed my Master would treat me with the same consideration he’d treat his child? (Which, heh, I sure can be sometimes!)
I would love to hear people’s thoughts on the matter over this weekend! It would make up for you lot’s complete failure (with notable and appreciated exceptions!) to answer the question earlier this week…!
Related posts:
Hey now. You’re going to tarnish my reputation. I’m an absolute darling on Fetlife!
*beams*
Oh, yes, kaya my dear friend, all the other trouble-makers think you’re a treasure!
And, heh, you haven’t left me much reputation to tarnish!
Is it really a transatlantic gap?
I’ve always thought that it was mostly just a function of a big, inclusive, public SM community coupled with the tyranny of the least common denominator. I know more than a few SM educators who preach a much more rulebound party line than they actually practice in private. Not because they’re hypocrites, but because they don’t know who the people are who’re reading their books or blogs or sitting through their classes. So they hedge, and talk down a bit. Same with playspace rules: they’re made largely in an attempt to shield the hosts from they liability they’re incurring by letting strangers come into their space and stab people with needles.
And so over time you get a whole culture of people who were raised and trained on SM For Dummies. Some people grow out of it, but they then they tend to migrate into more private venues and just aren’t as loud a voice in the big public forums.
Which is all to say that I probably ought to invite you guys the next time I throw a party. If only to salvage my nation’s pride.
Oh, hey Anton!
I think you’re more than a little bit right … but somehow the SM community outside the U.S. does seem a wee bit more easy-going….
Please do invite us — the last really good more private kind of party we were at was Abode in Australia, so you have much national pride to salvage!!!
Anton – As a Brit I kind of do and don’t agree with what Zille’s saying here. On the one hand I’m younger than her Master and so didn’t experience CP in schools, so don’t have that influence, but on the other hand, well, although we do have some level of community in the UK, I’m not even sure what an “SM Educator” is, and I certainly doubt I’ve ever met one
We do have demos and such going on over here but there’s not the same culture of looking up to famous practitioners which there appears to be in the US.
All that said though – we still have the safeword argument in UK SM forums. Usually the people insisting it’s essential are newbies or Dom/mes who want to impress newbies
Hi Zille, sorry I havent been by in a while.
I tottally get what your saying about safewords.
Whats the point in being submissive enough to allow someone to spank you but then when it hurts too much you call a safe word and the spanking stops?
Last Saturday I posted about my most recent spanking and happened to mention that I bratted afterwards by saying “that didn’t hurt” and the spanker gave me 6 extra with a bath brush and no safeword. It was deserved and I accepted it as real punishment. Infact it felt like a real spanking, the kind I have fantasied about.
But other people did not share my sentiments. They were outraged and said so in no uncertian terms.
Even after my spanker made a rare comment explaining the situation. They still said it was dangerous and should never have happened.
It was only 6 swats for gods sake.
If I could, I would ban safewords, because I feel that they defeat the object. If I’ve bratted or done something to earn the spanking, I don’t want to have any control over it. I have no right, I forfeited that right when I stepped over the line. Why should I have a say in how soundly I am punnished?
People moan about ‘Topping from the bottom’ but when I use a safeword or am given the option of using a safe word, I feel as though I am ‘topping’.
I like the feeling of not being in control, and this safeword thing is very confusing.
Am I a sub or a Top?
I have already told my spanker that I will not be using safewords anymore and I don’t want the option or chance to use one.
Surely if you trust someone, they would know the signs and be able to recognise them?
Sorry, didn’t mean to ramble on.
Hugs, Jay
This is always an interesting debate…..and I’m not sure the divide over safewords is transatlantic, but more one of those within the community who are D/s and S/M and those who self identify as ’spankers’. To me, where the real difference lies is in the wish on a submissives part within a D/s-S/M relationship to genuinely give up control and to trust her partner enough that while he may go beyond what she believes she is capable of, without him going to the point of causing her permanent or long term harm. In my experience, having both read about and met those in a self determined spanking rather than submissive relationship, that desire to give up control seems to be confined within very tight boundaries.
Within a D/s-S/M relationship, there may well be an argument for safewords at the very beginning of a relationship, as each partner gets to know the other and, as Jay says, gets to know the signs that physical, mental and emotional limits genuinely are being reached. Again, in my experience and observation, safewords are usually dropped as the relationship grows and dominance and submission deepens.
I wrote the other day about how different parts of the overall kink community often ’speak a different language’. I think this will always be one of those times where this is true. I leave you with one last thought from Master:
“If you believe you’re safe with someone then you don’t need a safeword…….if you don’t believe your safe, then a safeword is unlikely to keep you safe. Its a matter of good choice of partner, and of trust.”
love and hugs xxx
I’m definitely with you on this one. I technically have a safeword with my partner Tom, and I’ve never, ever used it. I communicate honestly and openly during scenes and he looks after me brilliantly.
With my other partner I have a safeword which I’ve used once. We’d both got fucked up, we were having rough sex while tripping, and I freaked out. I’m amazed I even remembered it, we were both out of our heads. It was very hot and very intimate though. In a way, safewording and having him stop and cuddle me was much more intimate than the sex would have been, but perhaps only because in the four years of our relationship it’s the first time I used the safeword, and I was proud to have remembered it, because he’s told me off for not using it when I perhaps should have before. (I completely get where you’re coming from in terms of being too proud a masochist!) But it wasn’t the only time I needed to ask him to stop – really stop – during a scene, it was just the only time I’ve never used the agreed word rather than communicating more naturally.
I don’t think my relationships are somehow better than ones where people do use safewords. But I don’t think they’re necessary in a healthy, trusting, loving, respectful, communicative D/s relationship.
Let’s be honest, most tops need a safeword more than the subs do… because many people aren’t as skilled, as empathic, as connected, or simple get carried away with their power trip. Most of the times I’ve ever had to use a safeword wasn’t because of myself, but to reign in a top.
Just my experience, mind you. And my opinion.
I too become frustrated by some of the rules about playing – I like to have a glass of wine, it doesn’t mean that I’m a drunk who will die in a suspension due to being inebriated and unable to articulate that I can’t breath, and also the rules about barriers when I’m in a ‘fluid bonded’ partnership – I think you’ve written about this as well in the past in the context of parties – D and I do the same, do some light play at the party and then go home where our lack of condoms won’t be a problem for anyone else.
Again, the rules are important when you’re playing with people other than your partner – I’d never have sexual contact with anyone else without a barrier, and would I never do BD/SM with out some kind of pre-arranged discussion about how to ramp things down if necessary. My situation is different than yours, though, I don’t do S/M with my primary partner – he’s not as dominant as I like/need, so I do that with others.
I personally don’t like how a safe-word can destroy the vibe of a scene – I like your solution ‘Sir, there’s a difficulty you should be aware of’ – that’s HOT! As opposed to ‘red, yellow, green, blue, violet, etc.’
When I was bottoming I had a safe word, but I never really used it. I think the only time I did was as a code word when we were in public and he was pushing my comfort level too much in front of people I didn’t feel comfortable doing BDSM stuff near. It was really just easier to slip out the one word rather than take him aside and/or say something in front of them.
But then, if he was a really attentive and caring Master, maybe I wouldn’t have needed to do that.
He wanted my safe word to be umbrella ;P I settled on Gray, then Black for very bad. I don’t think I ever used them except that one time that I said ‘Gray’ in front of …who ever it was..
I think it’s much easier just to.. yeah… say, “uhm, sir? That beautiful knot work you just did is cutting off the circulation to my head.. just so you know
” heh..
I don’t have a lot of interaction with organized BDSM groups at this point so I don’t have a whole lot to say about that. Some of what you describe, though, I see showing up as a general trend all over the place. People have this notion that you can do total risk avoidance if you have enough regulation. I see this at work where people will put in place $100,000 of regulatory structure to do passive risk mitigation on a $1000 problem. I’ve heard of this in the polyamorous community where I’ve seen people talk about the extensive rulesets (sometimes even physical contracts) they use to manage their relationships.
Having a safeword makes perfect sense to me when playing with someone new. Even with the best of intentions sometimes one can push someone beyond their limits, and it takes time to feel out the nuances of a new relationship. But to use polyamory as an example, I really don’t want to be in a relationship with someone who has to have a bunch of regulatory structure to keep themselves from repeatedly screwing up, you know? In the kink world, if I cause someone the bad kind of pain when I top them I expect them to tell me about it so we can fix the problem, not keep quiet until it becomes a serious issue.
Part of being a grown-up, I think, is accepting that life comes with a certain amount of risk involved. Sometimes shit happens, and not just because someone was negligent or because you didn’t have enough rules. Talk about the experience, learn from it, and move on.
The thing with safewords is that they’ve escaped from where they’re needed into realms where they’re not. Originally, the whole point of a safeword was to facilitate resistance and role play, so people could say “no, no, don’t hit me with that bad old whip” and have an understanding that the mean and nasty top was going to complete ignore them.
But in scenarios where the bottom isn’t going to want to say things like that, having a codeword to mean “no” is a hindrance to communication, not a help. A regular attempt to justify their use is based on the notion that the sub can get so deep into subspace that they can’t communicate, at which point we’re supposed to believe that the sub — who is at that stage barely able to say “urgh” — is supposed to remember that the currently approved way of intimating that there’s a problem is to to say “banana”. Personally, I’ve never been convinced, and tend to think that words like “help” or “stop” are easier to remember as signals meaning “help” or “stop”.
All that said, it’s worth noting that there has been a fair amount of work by kink-positive organizations to educate cops about the differences between SM and abuse, and one of the differentiators is for the responding cops to ask the sub if they have a safeword. If the answer is “yes”, then that’s a clue that this is the good stuff, not the bad.
So Zille isn’t actually correct in saying we don’t have a safeword, officer. It’s “red”, and means “there’s a cop here who wants to know if I’m being abused”…
M
Falconer — Hullo! Haven’t seen you around in too long!
I know the concept of safewords is over there in the U.K., and as I say, I like safewords in and of themselves, but the Brits are just more mellow about them, and about other things, like having a bar and a dungeon in the same place, or not insisting that their customers wear a full-body condom!
But I think the difference is also the spanko community vs the BDSM community. Once difference is that the spankos *know* they come from centuries of tradition, whereas the BDSM people can go around trumpeting that “Leather Families” have log traditions stretching back into history, in fact this stuff has all been made up, starting about when the soldiers got back from WWII, and the gay kinky ones wanted to have that same sense of hierarchy and community as they’d had in the military. So this is all very new and shiny — and scary! As opposed to the idea of school or family discipline, which is a pretty comfortable and safe notion.
Hello Jay — I’ve seen you’ve been getting lots of spanking action! Congrats!
Yes, I know all about people freaking out about something silly — made sillier when it all ex post facto and you’re obviously fine and not hurt or upset in the slightest!
I wouldn’t ban safewords … they have their uses, and within those activities are very helpful. Consider something a lot of people think is hot: “consensual non-consent” (or, to make some modicum of sense, pretending not to want the hot scene/sex you’re getting!)
In a situation like that, when you’re yelling, “No! No!” you want to be able to pathetically whimper, “You’re hurting me!” and the Top has the freedom to say, “Yeah, well you’d better do as I say or I’ll hurt you MORE! Bwahahaha!” … and not second-guess themselves and wonder, “Am I hurting her too much? Do I need to stop?!” because they know if they were unduly hurting you or freaking you out, you’d say your safeword. For situations like that, safewords can give both the Doms and subs a freedom to explore those more potentially dangerous fantasies.
So safewords surely do have their place … but to go so far as to insist that everyone use them all the time is just forcing your beliefs and values and limitations on other people, which of course is no good!
Hi Pandora! Thanks for stopping by! I think safewords are a great idea for if you’re tripping your balls off!
There are certainly times and places when a safeword becomes something handy, even if you normally don’t need one!
Tristan — You’re quite right about the Tops often needing the safeword at least as much or more than the bottoms! When you are hurting someone, and pushing them, you need to know that they are enjoying it (for whatever definition of “enjoyment” masochists/submissives have!) and not hating every second and just waiting until the scene is over to call the cops on you!
And you’re quite right it’s all about connection. And it’s very rare to have that level of connection with a new partner, so it’s much better to have safewords to start!
Tamsyn — Public play often does require a different set of rules than private play. You sometimes, need to be able to communicate without other people knowing exactly what you are saying, or you need to communicate a whole lot of words in a little amount of time, so setting up pre-arranged codes only makes sense.
I hope you get to play with someone who is considerate and thoughtful, and cares about you *at least as much as he cares about himself* [grins] and with whom you have such perfect love and trust that you never need a safeword!
Nahoi — Yes, you are just right: it’s all about risk mitigation.
I love your points about not wanting someone with a “regulatory structure to keep themselves from repeatedly screwing up,” and “being a grown-up, I think, is accepting that life comes with a certain amount of risk involved” — thank you for those, I will quote you!!!
At the risk of basically paraphrasing what others have said, and adding very little:
One of the problems inherent in discussion of this subject is that people are often talking about one of at least three different types of ’safeword’. There’s: 1) the traffic light type of safeword, which is explicitly *about* control and communication, in an exploratory sort of scene. It’s akin to a volume control. Then there’s: 2) the idea of a safeword as a way of protecting limits, a regulatory safety-valve controlled ostensibly by the scene bottom, but sometimes both top and bottom. And then there’s: 3) the shit-happens safeword, which is for the psychological, emotional, physical stuff you just can’t predict, but which needs to be dealt with as quickly as possible.
My impression is that a lot of the criticism of those who advocate safewords comes from an assumption that they’re talking about type 2, when in fact they’re advocating something closer to type 3. This is especially highlighted with respect to R/L punishment. The argument that one ought not to have a safeword during a punishment rather *assumes* that what’s meant is a type 2 safeword – why would one have control over limits if this is a real (and consensual, for some value of ‘consensual’) punishment? Fair enough. But it’s reasonable to see a type 3 safeword as not at all inconsistent with punishment. A sudden physical or emotional issue which relates to the bottom’s well-being needn’t have anything to do with wresting control from the top, or somehow avoiding punishment.
Zille’s piece here provides a couple of really good examples. Firstly:
That’s a rejection of a type 2 safeword during punishment, which seems entirely reasonable. But then:
This strikes me as contradictory, because ‘I just say X and he ends the scene’ is a perfect description of what a safeword *is*. Granted it’s more like a safe-phrase, and it’s certainly type 3, but it’s hard to argue that it doesn’t serve as a ’safeword’.
Personally I’m a big fan of type 3 safewords. I can understand the dismissal of the others, but type 3 seems to me a basic foundation for good play. It might be relevant that I don’t feel that having something like that takes anything *away* from play/punishment. Perhaps I’d feel differently if I did think something was lost or subtracted, but I don’t. It doesn’t reflect at all badly on my ability to judge how a scene is going, or any ability (or lack of) as a top, to have a small, clear, useful panic-button, for the occasional bit of unpredictable weirdness. If something is potentially extremely useful in that one-in-a-thousand situation, and doesn’t compromise the other 999, it seems a good bet.
Hello Paul of North Gate,
You are right that there are varying levels of safewords. The standard that I think is most common is “yellow” or some variant for “Um, something is a bit wrong, but nothing we should stop the entire scene for,” and “red” or the variant for, “Oh FUCK this needs to stop NOW!”
As I’ve said, there ain’t nothing wrong with those. I think they are great ideas, esp. for roleplay and “consensual non-consent play.”
And, obviously, saying “Red!” and saying, “Sir, I’m bleeding from my eyeballs!” are pretty much the same thing on the outside — they will both generally have the same effect on the scene.
However, there is one small — and of course huge — difference.
If a sub says, “Red,” the Top must stop . If they do not stop, they deserve social shunning at best.
But if I say, “Master, I’m bleeding from my eyeballs,” my Master may assess the situation, and decide that in that moment eyeball-bleeding is an acceptable side-effect, and continue on his merry way. That he is unlikely to do so is why I feel safe with him, safe enough to live a life with him without safewords … but he knows and I know that I never have a “Get out of jail free” card, that I never have a guaranteed way of ending a scene … he always has the discretion to not stop if he doesn’t see fit.
As I say … it’s a small thing, because most of the time, if I bring something to his attention, he will most likely agree with me that it merits at least a break to fix the problem. But for the two of us, it’s also a huge, vital thing, because in the end I have NO control and NO power … only the allowed freedom to make suggestions which he may or may not act upon.
“Red” means “STOP!” But I never say, “STOP!” All I say is, “May I bring this matter to your attention, Sir…?”
As my Master said further in the post on FetLife:
And, in response to safewords being vital for safety reasons:
Yes, it’s a difference both small and big. Not to be argumentative (though it probably is), but though that dynamic doesn’t feel safewordy to you, that sort of stepping outside of the scene to check on something that might not be right – even if it’s then decided unilaterally by the scene top to carry on regardless – has some features of a safeword. As with most things BDSM-y, it’s never a good thing to think that words have a single, specific meaning. I’d like to imagine that people can think of a ’safeword’ as a collection of different ideas and approaches, rather than *this*, or *that* idea or approach. Whatever works for them. A ’safeword’ doesn’t have to be that ‘get out of jail free card’ in order to have usefulness. I do think that often the rejection of the use of a safeword often amounts to the rejection of a specific *type* of safeword, rather than the general concept.
I definitely agree that seeing a safeword as a mental hoop to be jumped through is a big mistake. Notwithstanding that some obvious part of the usefulness of a safeword is that it *can* allow for freer expression of discomfort and resistance without implying a genuine desire for things to stop, an extreme case in which – in the dispassionate manner of a login password which must be entered exactly as expected – all aspects of communication about safety are crammed into a safeword, seems pretty silly. Maybe I don’t get out enough, but it has a straw-man feel about it. Safewords don’t have to be like that.
It’s possible to see a safeword, not as a replacement for other modes of communication, but as an additional bit of shorthand – another tool in the toolbox, if and when it’s useful. Without wanting to argue by anecdote, the only time I can remember my wife safewording was during a scene in a hotel room, when she was taken suddenly, violently ill. Within seconds she was in the bathroom, and various ickiness was avoided. She claims that the speed and clarity of the moment came from having the safeword to use, and that, though of course she could in theory have described how she was feeling in all sorts of other ways, which I would have understood, the suddenness and violence of the moment made articulating things next to impossible.
PaulatNorthGare,
You are missing (or dismissing) the core point here: as commonly used, and indeed as you refer to them, a “safeword” (whether in the conventional sense or your whatever-you-want-it-to-mean one) is a mechanism by which the recipient can cause something to happen. That “something” might be to stop (often “red” is used), or to check in (often “yellow”), but it is a command from the bottom to the top that must be obeyed if the thing is to have any meaning. If it’s purely advisory, then it cannot be a safeword, not matter what your efforts are altering meaning might suggest. Giving Zille a pause button, a stop button, or a “check in with me now” button distorts what we want to have. It may not disrupt your relationship at all, which is fine, but safewords, whichever definition you choose to create, have a harmful consequence for ours.
And that’s the reason we prefer not to use them.
Another point your missing or misunderstanding is the fact, not opinion, that the use of a safeword does require the user to jump through an extra mental hoop, and whether you think that’s “a mistake” (as you wrote above) or not is irrelevant: it is a fact that you cannot escape.
I’ll demonstrate that by borrowing your example: your wife felt ill, remembered her safeword, said it, and within seconds she was in the bathroom… OK, I suspect that you’re omitting the bit where you ask her what was wrong, she explains, and makes her dash. Compare the non-codeword, non-safeword example: Zille feels ill, says “I feel sick”, I immediately help her to the bathroom (or get out of her way). That’s THREE unnecessary steps eliminated: the remembering what the safeword happened to be, her saying it, my question to her “what’s up? Why did you safeword?”, before we get back to the important issue (that she felt sick).
Oh, and your implication that a normal language dialog (”Excuse me, my leg is hurting”) could somehow be considered a safeword is obviously missing the whole point of the things. They exist, whether you’ll admit this or not, so that we can play with scenes in which “no” doesn’t mean “no”. The whole point of a safeword is that it is a word that is carrying additional meaning during that scene; if someone was to simply use words at their face value, resistance play could never happen because the “victim” would yell “help! stop!” and the scene would be over!
I will agree that safewords are another tool in the toolbox. The issue, though, is that they are a tool that is well suited for a limited number of situations, is usable, but suboptimal for a large number of them, and is unsuited and will damage a final group.
I’ll offer a parting observation: in SCUBA diving, a lot of people vociferously assert that diving on your own, without a buddy, is horribly dangerous and should never be done. I’ll state, as a fact, that there have been plenty of situations where two people as a buddy team ended up in life-threatening danger, because one of them was stupid. Of course, sometimes having that second person along saves the first’s life, but there are also times where it simply increases the death toll. So the buddy system is a tool, but like safewords, its a tool whose suitability for use is rarely examined dispassionately, and sometimes the tool is just unhelpful.
The profound irony is that the loudest advocates for these “safety” measures have typically not assessed the individual situations well enough to be qualified to have an opinion on the value of the measure AS IT APPLIES to that situation.
*nods* That works as a definition. Maybe I’m misunderstanding something. Zille wrote:
What I read there is that Zille *does* cause something to happen: you end the scene. Or, if I read the other stuff correctly, you at least take a moment to assess the situation and decide what to do about it – perhaps nothing. I don’t think I’m playing with words in seeing that description as a ‘mechanism by which the recipient can cause something to happen’. That ’something’ might not involve the scene ending, but it’s still something, and something to do with safety.
No, it’s an assertion, rather than a fact, and I don’t think it’s necessarily true in all cases. It doesn’t seem improbable to me that a safeword can potentially be internalised to such an extent that it requires *less* mental effort than the construction of something more elaborate. It’s exactly how I interpret the situation I described with my wife. To wit:
No, there wasn’t any omission. There was the safeword, I immediately lifted her off my lap, she dashed to the bathroom, and then explained afterwards what had happened. She was pretty explicit in expressing that it was the safeword and my immediate response that allowed her to get to the bathroom in time. At the very least it saved us plenty of embarrassment.
Much as you – quite rightly – condemn blanket statements that people ought to have safewords, I think you’re making the mistake of assuming that the process of *using* a safeword is the same for everyone.
Ah, blast it, this is all my fault!
When I wrote:
it was a serious over-simplification, which worked at the time, but now that we are bogged down in the semantics of “what a safeword does and doesn’t mean,” is just getting in the way.
To clarify, my Master doesn’t have to stop the scene and no matter what I say, it doesn’t necessarily end the scene. I could say, “Master, I’m about to throw up,” and he could decided that it would be hot to have me throw up (if you go over to http://underhishand.com/ there was a scene where kaya threw up from a blow job and the scene continued) and thus there would be no “cause and effect” from my comment. He does pause perhaps to consider the matter, but as he is constantly considering what he is doing, and how that’s effecting me, and what he wants to do next during the entire scene, that’s not really a significant change.
I think it makes perfect sense that people use safewords in different ways, because everyone’s got their own unique take on sexuality, and on doing kink.
However, just because someone defines safeword in a different way, does not mean that my Master and I use safewords.
If we go by the standard definition, from Wikipedia:
then my Master and I do not use safewords.
Interestingly, Wikipedia does point out that:
So, by the standard definition, we are in the group of people who do not use safewords. But of course we have communication — it’s just that I have no way to stop or temporarily halt a scene.
Zille:
I see now. It’s not a safeword; it’s a *tweet*.
Right. I didn’t/don’t mean to suggest that there’s anything wrong with not using them. I couldn’t get my head around you talking about not having a safeword, yet elsewhere describing a process which sounded to me exactly like a safeword in action.
My main goal is just to argue that *some forms* of safeword aren’t at all inconsistent with R/L punishment, since using one doesn’t necessarily mean that the bottom has control over deciding when it stops. Ultimately I reckon it’s better to talk about what one specifically uses safewords *for* (maybe nothing), than whether one has them or not. I’m not sure the on/off binary really captures the variation of behaviour that’s out there.
Excuse any combative tone; it’s hard-wired, I’m afraid.
No problem, Paul — my Master is hard-wired with the same combative tone in online responses, so I’m not unused to seeing that sort of thing!
Yes, a tweet is one way to look at it. It’s more an annoying rule, really! Because I want to be completely free of responsibility or any of the other yucky things that come with control and power [grins] and instead, I have to speak up and say when there is a problem he might need to know about — darn it!
I was always one of those subs who didn’t want to use my safeword, for a number of reasons ranging from silly to extremely silly. And when we are in a scene, my first response is always to see if whatever is bothering me is ignorable, before I bring it to my Master’s attention.
And then of course there are the times when I go off into my masochistic deep end. At that point in the game, not only would I not use a safeword if I had one, but I won’t even notice and/or care about problems which normally should be mentioned. When I get in that space, my Master has to take very close care of me, because I’d happily let myself get injured (or simply not notice) … in those instances, if he was waiting for me to use my safeword and just kept on going, Very Bad Things would happen, because I’m simply in no space to care for myself, I just want more pain, more pain NOW, and I don’t really care what kind of pain it is…. If my Master wasn’t used to being totally in control, at that point it would actually become dangerous to play — but I’m so very glad that we are able to have those moments, because we can have really profound experiences when I’m in that place!
There are absolutely people for whom safewords can be and are an important part of punishment, and they are not any “less real” than my Master and me, or anything silly like that.
It’s just that it’s very important for my Master’s and my dynamic that there be no safewords (in case we haven’t made that abundantly clear by this point in time!) and the only reason we’ve had to argue this point in the first place is because of the people who insist that safewords are the only thing that turn what would otherwise be hideous abuse into happy, sex-positive BDSM.
As I’ve said, neither my Master and I have anything against safewords, and we encourage other people to use them. We just are happier not using them ourselves, and it’s important for who we are as Master and slave that we feel we do not have them…. And whether or not you think we have them, well, you can think it all you like if it makes you happy! But we are going to continue to insist we don’t use them, and since that makes us happy, well, why bother arguing it?
(And now it’s my turn to apologise if I come off sounding combative … I’m a wee bit hung-over and I am having trouble thinking of the sweet and gentle way of phrasing things at the moment!)