I liked this article by Sinclair Sexsmith on the use (or not) of safewords. She makes the point that communicating in plain English with things like ‘no’ or ‘slow down’ is a entirely valid way to manage a scene. A safeword is obviously necessary when engaging in some types of roleplay or consensual non-consent scenes, but it’s by no means compulsory in every dynamic. Safewords are tools that can be selectively deployed.
I’m personally perfect happy to pick a safeword or use color codes if the domme requests that, but I do find it somewhat odd. I’ve had decades of using ‘no’ and ‘stop’ to mean ‘no’ and ‘stop’. So why complicate things unnecessarily? Does a safeword suddenly make ‘no’ not mean ‘no’?
I believe this drawing is by the artist Dauinsaru. I found it via the Femdom Art tumblr.
Yes, a safeword can make ‘no’ and ‘stop’ into ‘more please’ for those who, either dom or sub, desire this headspace. More importantly, they function as shorthand for a quick check-in when the one who is the sub is no longer communicative and seems, in the moment, unable to engage in full sentence communication. IMHO safewords are good practice even if never invoked.
Peace,
Pat
As I mentioned in my reply to Ferns, I’m going to write a couple more posts on this, so I’ll save most of my follow-up thoughts for those. However, I am interested in the idea that safewords are an easier way to respond when deep in subspace. That’s not my personal experience. I have to think about a safeword, where “no…please stop…” is intuitive and automatic. I find it much easier to use regular words when I’m spacey. But obviously I’m a sample size of 1, so I wouldn’t pretend to have any deep knowledge here.
-paltego
I get that some people can just say ‘no’ and etc, but my experience with my long term submissive was that he *would* beg me to stop, say no, tell me he’d had enough, but that’s not what he wanted. Obviously we had to learn how that worked over time.
When I played, I pushed him to fall over into that space where his voice was unfiltered and when he was like that, he would say ‘no’ or ‘please stop’ or ‘I’ve had enough’. It was visceral and instinctual and he couldn’t stop it coming out, but he also *didn’t mean it*. He wasn’t role playing, everything in him was saying ‘no’, but he didn’t want me to stop.
So he got to genuinely react to difficult things without a filter, and I got to know that I could safely keep going unless he safeworded. For me THAT’S what a safeword is for.
I’d add: it’s super hot to continue when someone genuinely pleads for you to stop (caveating the shit out of this: it’s obviously a place where you can easily get into trouble).
Ferns
Thanks for the thoughtful comment. This comment actually triggered two follow-up posts – one I just published and another I’ll publish tomorrow. So keep reading for a proper response to this 🙂
I do agree that this kind of reaction is super hot – even though it’s not my typical reaction when playing. It’s kind of the pair to the top’s attitude of ‘That looks like it must really hurt…let me do it some more’, which I also really like.
-paltego