BDSM 101: Safewords, and the people who need them

Welcome to another installment of Daria on her soapbox! This post is for education only, no actual soapboxy screeching happening!

I know I'm preaching to the choir somewhat, and I think I've said most, if not all, of this before, but considering that I have a couple new readers who likely haven't read my other kinky fics before the drabble and didn't wade through the blog posts of endless rambling about kink - here we go again!

I hope you have fun, and maybe learn something new, or just enjoy reading something of mine that's still not my groceries shopping list!

I don't know what your background is, how and where you got your knowledge of BDSM from.

Me? I've been a sub for 11 years now, almost 8 of that to the same man. I'm bisexual, I'm really a switch (comfortable both bottoming and topping), but I identify mostly as submissive because of the relationship I'm in. We don't do 24/7 total power exchange because neither of us wants to deal with that level of responsibility; I'm a painslut, I love bondage, I moderately suck at roleplaying (let's not talk about the 'fuckmeat' incident!), my bf is the only one I'd let humiliate me; I've done my share of crazy things, I have the scars to prove it, but on a scale of 1 - totally boring couple, to 10 - insane weirdos, we about level at a 5 nowadays.
Our relationship started off as a botched playdate, the whole falling-in-love, crazy-matched-interests thing happened later, along the way. People who don't know what we do behind closed doors always remark how close we are, and how wonderful they find the fact that my boyfriend is so loving, nice, and attentive to me. Phrases like, "Worships the ground underneath my feet" have been uttered. It's a running joke between us, really, even more so when I have rug burn on my knees again from, well, you know, being the one who's doing the worshiping.

Now, when I started writing BDSM twi fanfic 3 years ago there weren't that many kinky stories around here. The one with the most traffic was tarasueme's The Submissive, a story I find hilariously cute for the most part (fluff if there's ever been any), but enragingly stupid in one aspect: the safeword issue.

A couple weeks ago I had an exchange in the Domward's playground group on FB that reminded me of that again - and this is the real reason for this blog post.

Mind you, I'm not omniscient, I only speak from my own experience, but I've been around for a while and I've talked to many people on- and off-line, and we've pretty much agreed on this.

But, before I get to the safeword thing, a few words about the people who might find themselves in the position of using safewords - Doms and subs, tops and bottoms, and everything in between.

If you want to, I can pen another ramble about the terminology, but for now let's just consider them all as the kinky people who like to have fun outside of society's norms.

Who we are in the playroom, and what we want to do / want done to us does, in no way, reflect on who we are in the 'outside world .' 
The worst word anyone in BDSM gets regularly confronted with is 'abuse.' In the UK, for instance, it's against the law to spank someone, because you cannot legally consent to someone physically harming you in any way. (At least, this is what I read a while ago. Please correct me if I'm wrong.) How they treat chiropractor and dentist sessions I really don't want to think about ...
Anyway. The tantamount bit of information is this: we get off on things we do to each other. Only consenting adults are involved. No form of coercion or bullying is involved. The underlying basis is brutal honesty and trust, we respect the hell out of our play partners, otherwise we wouldn't do this. And, last but not least, we only get off on doing this / having this done by people who also get off on this.

In other words: Being a sadist isn't a bad thing. It doesn't mean you torture kittens in your free time, no - you love to hurt someone who craves being hurt like nothing else. You're doing your masochist a gigantic favor when you whip their ass (and the fact that you get off doing so might play into it, too, but really, favor!). You'd never do this to someone who wouldn't enjoy this, need this, want this. You will do everything in your power to keep your partner and yourself safe, physically and mentally, and you're prepared to stop the second anything goes wrong. You are in complete control of the pain you inflict.

Being a masochist doesn't mean you're a runner-up for Miss Abused Wife, it means that you enjoy someone, who gets off on it, inflicting pain on you. That pain still hurts, but your body and mind are wired in a way that somehow turn this painful sensation into something that triggers your reward centers. Not every pain is enjoyable, you don't want pain to always be enjoyable; you only do this with someone you trust, and who you know respects you, treasures you, understands your needs even if they don't share them. And there's a single reason why you let them do this, even when part of your subconscious is screaming at you to STOP! Not to let any harm come to you! - You have a safeword, and thus the real power to end things when just enough suddenly turns into too much.

If you look closely at a BDSM scene, it's two people (or however many are involved) enacting their shared fantasy. They are playing a game, plain and simple. A game with strict, set rules where both partners assume their given roles, and act accordingly. The important word here is "act."
Everyone is different, every scene is different, rules vary tremendously - but the premise remains the same. There is no "right way" to do something, but many things that can, and do, go wrong.

Most people like to set up their scenes in a way that involves special vocabulary. "Stop!" really means, "Go ON!", "Please no!" means, "Come on and get me!", and so on. It's part of the fun - you're already deep in immoral territory, might as well break with the usual conventions of common courtesy and get down and dirty with taboos like name calling, manhandling someone, etc. Maybe we really are a bunch of bad people, but this can be tremendous fun. It's like diving head first into the deep, dark, cruel depths of human psychology - but with someone you trust and respect, you know this is mutual, and you're not seriously meaning all this, you're exploring it together, and at the other end you'll come out unharmed, a few experiences richer.

Of course, no one can read each other's mind, and when things get rough you get real tears, real cries of pain, real defensive reactions, and it gets impossible to gauge if you're still on a green light playground, or just plummeted in way too deep. Accidents happen - shit, CRAMPS happen! Even if you're not playing on a basis that is heavy on the sub's psyche, people can feel like shit from one moment to the next, and when you're suddenly stupefied with a feeling of deep depression you don't display that as a warning sign atop your head so everyone else will know this very second.

This is exactly what safewords are for. Things that the Dom NEEDS to know, but can't, unless the sub tells him. And this usually has to go with an instant stop of what has been going on, with possible first aid (including hugs and cookies) included.

Nothing more. Nothing less.

Now, you see that this can become a loaded topic, too. Subs are often wary of using a safeword too soon because that might appear like they just wussed out and tried to get out of a semi uncomfortable situation just because they whimsically changed their minds (this fear seems to be pretty much specific to subs. Most Doms won't be able to follow the logic. Probably, because they're the ones charged with protecting everyone and keeping everyone safe. Nothing is more important than that, and certainly not your ego!). Doms are wary of safewords because that always means they fucked up, even if they didn't actually cause it to happen (see cramp in your calf while in bondage, the fun!), and even if they did, the sub usually doesn't hold it against them. Doms are sticklers for safety, and they turn into the worst kind of overprotective mother hens when accidents happen - stress on "accidents," not when their sub has a slight fingerprint bruise from enthusiastic slapping. That's a cherished souvenir!

Why?

Well, they had all the responsibility in the scene, they held the sub's trust, they promised to do everything possible to make this perfect - and still things went south. Please, trust me when I tell you that there's nothing more funny than the guy who just caned your ass red and blue fussing over you like you're the most fragile, precious thing on Earth. It's endearing, and I fully admit to abusing such reactions shamelessly, but yes, I've once ended up sitting in the ER with a dislocated shoulder, snapping at my bf (while having hiccups from badly contained laughter) that he has to stop worrying over me this very minute, or I'll have some orderly kick him out of the hospital. Yes, it was his fault that the damn knot slipped, and of course I'm happy that he feels like shit for making me scream at the top of my lungs and cry for ten minutes straight, but sheesh, get over it! He didn't do it deliberately, and I've had worse from falling off slides at kindergarten playgrounds. I knew there were risks involved in suspension bondage, I know that he's a good rigger and always checks his knots - if you never do anything where something might go wrong you'll die of boredom in the end.
If you were wondering, no, I didn't need a safeword then, it was pretty obvious that we had to stop. Screaming it still felt good.

Nevertheless, if sometimes does happen that safewords get abused by subs. That usually ends badly, and with all involved parties no longer wanting to have anything to do with each other. It usually goes hand in hand with being insincere, or outright lying - coquettish teases do not make good subs, although subs might occasionally act like that.

More often, concerned subs might use safewords a little too early, simply because they're not sure about their own limits, and whether their Dom knows what exactly he's doing to them. That usually ends in a brief pause where knowledge, concerns, assurances are exchanged, and an agreement is reached - like, yes, I'm aware that your hands are falling asleep, that's why I'm constantly brushing against you 'accidentally,' and I will get you out of those ropes the moment your skin starts to cool and circulation isn't working 100% anymore, don't worry about it; or, no, sorry, I wasn't aware of that sensitive spot just above the back of your knee, I won't put pressure on it again, next time we'll do the bondage differently and anchor everything on your hips and ankles instead.
Unless something goes really wrong, things resume after that brief pause, maybe with a slight change of plans, maybe with skipping right to the next stage, whatever that might be.

A concrete example, using the latest chapters of LtM: Bella didn't tell Edward that she's pretty much an ass virgin (someone used that word, had to re-use it!), although, as we'll see, that's not quite the case, she wouldn't have been that stupid, and untruthful, she just held out on the size of objects previously lodged in her bum, leading to, you know it, some really uncomfortable pain.
Now, having two lubed up fingers in your not-stretched ass is painful, no shit - but it's not the end of the world. Also, not the end of the scene, and if you take it slow, not even the end of anal play in that very scene. Because she didn't start crying, shouting, shying away from him - really, averse physical reactions translate VERY well in static, not-rough-her-up play even when you're hogtied like a Thanksgiving turkey! - so he went on, if at a much slower pace.

Should she have used her safeword? Could she have?

Should, well, no, because while he did accidentally hurt her, he stopped immediately anyway and checked back with her, and there was no real reason to use the 'all engines stop!' when it was a minor detail that went a little awry.

Could she? Well, that depends. She could have vetoed any further anal play, and as a responsible Dom he would have respected that without further comment - mind you, he wants to be in control of the pain he inflicts on her, if she felt like her ass was now too sore to continue he wouldn't have been in control of what he does anymore, hence he wouldn't do it, period.
A sure reason to use the safeword would have been if he'd gone on without stopping, ignoring her reaction, or, even worse, gone on by shoving his cock up her ass. Aka the 'usual' reaction of what guys do in crappy free kindle porn, and way too many other 'published' novels.
As many of you can attest from gone wrong attempts at anal sex, THIS SHIT HURTS!! And no, it doesn't get pleasurable 2 mins in and you don't get an anal orgasm from it!!

But, you know, with a little patience and lots of lube anal sex can be one of the most enjoyable things in the world, and even somewhat gone-wrong starts can be rescued with more patience and more lube. But not always.

Endless rambling short: What did we learn today?
- Safewords are for emergency situations. ANY emergency perceived. You can't continue playing if the sub freaks.
- Safewords are important, because sometimes you need a sure 'STOP!' sign, because all the usual stop signs we are used to don't work.
- Safewords don't end scenes, they can also just act as a brief break to swap status information, and resume without any changes, if they are not needed.
- No one is a wuss for needing a safeword, but you're a fucking idiot for abusing it - or what else do you call the people who use the emergency brake on the train?
- Doms heavily rely on their trustworthy subs to be aware of their safeword, and ready to use it. Some shit you just can't do if you're not sure they'll stop you if too much is too much.

A responsibly used safeword is NEVER something that leads to repercussions for the sub. It doesn't end the relationship between Dom and sub, it doesn't put any blame on them, it doesn't mean they're in any way 'less worthy' because they couldn't take something.

I hate using safewords myself, I try to gauge before a scene if what I know will happen will reach my limits, and thus inform my Dom of any possibly arising problems beforehand. I can imagine that, in some scenes, you might actively install a safeword to trigger some event, or push a sub beyond their limits, but in those cases you know that it will be used, that it's a signal like so many others, and not a "OMG, shit, what just happened?" thing. You can, of course, have more than one safeword, but considering it's usually a last resort a sub has to cling to when they're frantic, in pain, about to black out, whatnot, it should be something easy, something they won't forget. That's why a lot of people use "RED" - if you think of 'Stop,' it's the next best thing that comes to your mind, right? It's also short, and quite powerful when yelled at the top of your lungs.

And, as a last bit, what happens if you really need to stop a scene with a safeword, and don't continue?
First off, super quick dissolution of what caused the issue. That's why you keep scissors handy for bondage, why you have a fully stocked first-aid kit ready, plus soda and something sugary to eat if anyone's crashing.
Once the sub is safe and comfortable, you make sure they stay that way. If it was just a bad cramp, you're done, but that can also entail a trip to the ER. Don't bother with great cleanup, or concocting weird stories - you need to be honest and up-front with the EMTs, nurses, and doctors. Trust me, whatever you've been up to is nowhere near the top 10 weird things they've encountered, maybe not even this year, or this week.
The next step is finding out why it happened so you can keep it from happening again - and talking about the entire experience, even the bad parts. As I said, Doms tend to go into overprotective mother-hen-mode at this stage, so they might need reassurance, too, or a slap in the face, depending on how they react. Yes, indeed, they are good guys and gals, they don't want you to get hurt or harmed! But, most importantly, the sub needs to know that they acted the right way, they need to know it will not happen again, they need to decide for themselves if this was a deal breaker for them, leading to a new hard limit, or just a fluke, experience soon to be repeated, with better safety precautions in place.

If you still have any questions, or want to discuss this or other topics, just drop me a PM on FFnet, I'll get back to you.

Remember, a sub trusts their Dom, explicitly. Part of every scene is being mindfucked - what might rationally seem like a stupid idea or weird verbal exchanges does work well when you're there, doing exactly that. Else, we wouldn't do any of the shit we love to do!