Safewords
The False Security of Safewords
i hear a lot about people having safewords, establishing them, and the conditions they would use them. This sounds all well and good but i feel that all they do is provide a false safety net. By the time a sub should use them thinking and talking are way beyond their ability.
The establishment of safe words is in response to the growing concern our lifestyle is dangerous and if vanillas ( regular people ) discovered what we do they would be scandalized. To buffer this we have come up with safe words. Words a sub may use to stop, slow down, or speed up what is occurring. This would appease the vanilla crowd, for it appears the sub has the control, that they are regulating everything. We go to many lengths to appear completely equal.We wave the safe, sane, consensual (SSC) banner before us as if it were a civil rights campaign.
The theory of SSC is good in it’s fundamental foundation. In a perfect society it could even work. But in real life another idea works better. RACK- Risk Awareness Consensual Kink. In other words, i understand the risks and they are risks i am prepared to accept in the living of my kink, my lifestyle. Every time someone gets pierced there is a chance of infection yet many still do it. Why? Because they know the risk, they act to minimize that risk and do the activity.
Many a sub has said they have a safe word to stop a scene if they need it. Yet from experience i know that when it gets to that point of when a sub should use their safe word they are incapable of even saying their name much less some red word. In a scene a sub relies on the Dom to be able to read them, to judge for the sub where to go and how far. i know i put alot on a Dom saying this, but i also know we subs place our very lives in Their hands when we do scenes. A Dom is trying to send a sub to heightened levels of pleasure through pain. We LOVE it…yes! But it also distorts our perception. It makes us incapable of making the decision to stop, mainly because we feel we are supersubs and can take anything striving to find subspace.
Then there are the subs that refuse to use safewords for one reason or another. That’s me. i do not use them. Why? Good question. i feel i have trusted this Person to tie me up, to beat me with whatever They want, to stand naked in front of anybody…..plus whatever else may happen. i also trust them with my life and to know when to stop and how far to go. i feel a sub gives up the right to use safewords when they accept a scene. i give enough clues in my body language that i am getting near a breaking point that if the One i am playing with would only keep a token notice of me They would see these signs.
Safewords can also be used to Top From The Bottom, TFTB. If a sub has the power to stop, slow down, or speed up a scene isn’t this power they shouldn’t really have? They are in affect controlling the Dom, making Him/Her perform at a rate the sub wants Them to. This can be very subtle to the point neither participant is aware of what is actually happening. But by using safewords the sub can actually direct and/or redirect a scene to the point it is completely different from what the Dom wanted to do in the first place. One could then start wondering exactly who is truely in charge.
Now i am not saying safewords do not have a place in our lifestyle. When people play that are new to each other, then i could see a use for them. But why have a safe word? When i am tied over some object and it starts hurting my ribs ( for example) to the point i can not focus on what the Dom is doing, i simple explain my problem. i did not use a safe word, one was not needed. A Dom should listen to the sub and act according to the information given. They could elect to change something, the could decide to remove something, or they could decide the sub can suffer through it. It is all up to Their decision as it should be.
i am not saying safewords should be abolished completely. For some they are necessary to their feeling of security. But let me stress i feel it’s a false sense of security. No one says a Dom HAS to act on those words any more than They have to act on anything i say. Now if They don’t act on the words you can be fairly certain the sub would have second thoughts of ever playing with Them again. But again, it all depends on what the sub safeworded for and the circumstances.
In conclusion let me say i feel safewords are a product of our lifestyle appeasing the vanilla world. The need of the outside world to guarantee everything is equal and safe has eclipsed our desire for a power exchange where only One has the ability to change something in a relationship or scene. Waving the words around does not demand the Dom act on the words, He can very well ignore them. Plus the fact He is going to ask what is wrong , which is the step i go to skipping the safeword step. By the time a sub may need to use a safeword, normal language could be beyond them…they may not be able to feel what is happening to their body…they may not even be able to remember their own name not to mention a red word.
Next time try being normal without this whole contortionist act to please other. If something is uncomfortable, just say so. Doms, see, not just look at Your subs….become aware what body language is and means. Get to know Your sub and her responses. Get to know the warning signs when she is about to have a bad moment or has had too much. Subs, trust your Doms to know what is best, let them know you are giving control and They will have to know when you’ve had too much and need to stop. Just try to do this in a non-TFTB way! LMAO!
Above all else…HAVE FUN!