I have never safeworded.
Eileen, um, you’re a top. You don’t have safewords.
Yes, I fucking do.
There is this consistent, repetitive argument that I hear all the time from people who want to pick into the nitty-gritty of power exchange. You must have heard it. It goes like this: Bottoms actually have the power in scenes, because they have safewords and can stop the scene any time they want to.
This line of thinking indicates two things to me. Thing the first: There are some serious misconceptions about what a safeword is intended for. And thing the second: there are some serious misconceptions regarding the well-being of tops.
Safewords are not a way to guide a scene. They are a last resort for people who don’t feel comfortable not having a last resort. Plenty of people don’t have them. More often, as in the case of May and myself, we have them and never use them. We forget about them, most of the time. More on this later.
This idea that bottoms have the power because they have this one magic word that protects them from the badness is an incredibly strange all-or-nothing idea. Power shifts and flows; control has levels, variations. It’s sexy to some to think of giving it all up, every iota of control or power. The reality of the matter is that such things don’t work in consensual relationships. I’m sorry to burst that bubble. Get over it. Your fantasy is not reality. It’s simply very hot fantasy.
Perhaps this misconception comes about because people picture bottoms clinging to their safewords, like, hit me just the right way, I can stop this any second, you don’t want to make me pull out now, do you?
This is utter bullshit. If you do this as a bottom, you need to stop and consider how degrading and manipulative this is. And you need to consider what might happen when you play with a top who won’t stand for being degraded or manipulated. It’s a game people like to play, but it shouldn’t be played with safewords.
Safewords are not a sexy toy to play with. They are not sexy. If you think they’re sexy, I think you’ve missed the point.
I have seen people try to play around the idea that the goal of the scene is to safeword. I have seen people try to do battle in scenes, daring one another to safeword first. This never ends well. Sexualizing safewords is an insidious, dangerous, stupid way of getting off on non-consensual play. Safewords are not a fantasy. Safewords are reality.
A safeword is a way to communicate out of role. (I am not going to write about the intersection of role and real today.) A safeword does not indicate that someone’s won some stupid, imaginary prize. A safeword does not indicate a need to guide a scene. It indicates a need to stop. A safeword brings a scene to a jarring, screeching halt that is in no way arousing, in no way fun, but entirely necessary. It is a very handy thing to have around.
I take safewords to mean a person saying to a partner, “I need this to stop right the fuck now.”This is often followed by, “Because I’m hitting an emotional place I can’t deal with.” Or alternately, “Because I think you need to take me to the hospital.”
Safewords are almost never used before something goes wrong. That’s not what they’re designed for; they’re designed to indicate when something has gone wrong already. Someone is already hurt. Someone has passed their consensual limit.
Following from this, the misconception that tops do not have safewords is entirely fucked. It indicates a breakdown in the idea of consensual relationships. Do you know what you imply when you talk about only bottoms having safewords?
You imply that tops cannot be hurt.
I did not consent to a relationship or a role wherein I am expected to never be hurt.
You think I can’t get hurt if I’m on the handle end of the whip? What if I hit myself in the eye? (From personal experience, I can assure you this hurts. A lot.)
You think I can’t get freaked if I’m the perpetrator of an emotional trauma?
You think I don’t sometimes find myself in scenes that aren’t going the way I want them to? That I can’t have my needs derailed? That I don’t have emotional buttons like the rest of the world?
You think that I don’t have to consent?
I used to wig the fuck out when people touched my throat. I still squirm a little when people touch my hair. Once I wrestled with this guy at a party; through a crap communication session I didn’t establish this limit. He put a hand to the side of my throat, I got royally pissed off, and I lost my connection with the scene. I did not, however, safeword. I probably should have. It did not occur to me. I had not yet learned I could.
A common idea is that tops don’t have to safeword because they’re in control of how the scene progresses; that it stops and starts solely at their discretion. If you’ve ever topped a deeply intricate scene, an incredibly intense scene, a long-term scene, or hell, any scene at all, you know this isn’t always true. Scenes take on lives of their own. They grow organically, they establish rhythms and pathways that both partners follow. There will sometimes be moments when your head clears, you look again, and someone you love is sobbing and hurting because you made them sob and hurt. And it’s bad.
When this happens, you can’t just walk away. Call me crazy, but pulling abruptly out of a scene without explaining to my bottom that I’m having a problem, abandoning them in a sobbing, hurting mess, is irresponsible. It means I’ll freak them out, and I won’t get the care I need. And neither will they.Tops are not always the strong guiding forces that confidently lead bottoms to scarier and darker places. Sometimes the places we go are just as scary to us as they are to our partners.
I wrote earlier that May and I have safewords, but never use them. Sometimes they’re not available; sometimes May is gagged or I’m in the middle of a sixteen needle penetration that I can’t simply unravel. But in reality, we’ve never used them because we never need them. This is simply our style; a telling characteristic of how rabidly we demand constant communication. Of how much we trust. Of our mutual consent.
May doesn’t trust that I won’t hurt him more than he can stand. Sometimes I will hurt him more than he can stand. I don’t trust him to never ask for more than I can give. Sometimes he will ask.
We trust each other that no matter how one of us is hurt, or both of us are hurt, we’ll work it out. I can gag him and beat him six ways from Sunday and stage scenes of lust upon his body and mind, and in the end, we will be okay. We are too dedicated to each other and ourselves to accept scenarios in which we fail to work things out.
If he needs to, he can safeword.
And so can I.
21 Comments
Some people use safewords to guide a scene. Your title’s reference of traffic lights is, for the uninitiated, a reference to the typical “red, yellow, and green” codewords used to indicate the three generalized messages “stop right now, please soften up a little, and rev it up.”
Of these, only red is traditionally thought of as a safeword, because it means stop, but I have heard yellow and green used quite a few times. I used “yellow” once myself, because I started playing with partners for whom “please soften up a little” meant the same thing as “yellow.”
In any event, by that definition, safewords are certainly used to guide scenes.
Oh and, though you already know this, when I said “yellow” that one time, my top said, “red,” and I never thought it out of place for him to do so.
Damn. What I meant to write was “I used “yellow” once myself, before I started playing with partners for whom “please soften up a little” meant the same thing as “yellow” (in our mutual dictionary at thee time).”
I think of red and yellow as both being safewords, but I’ve never used green.
This is just a brilliant post. I have been in at least one situation on each side where I should have safeworded but did not. (One time I formally did not have safewords, but probably could have safeworded anyway, and didn’t, leaving my top feeling like an asshole later.) I’ve never safeworded as the top, but I need to add it to my repertoire for exactly the reasons you described.
This is like a reverse echo of Jos’s argument to me about responsibility:
I did not consent to a relationship or a role wherein I am expected to never be hurt.
That is so cool.
I do have to argue slightly, though. Safewording is not, IMO, “failing to work things out.” Sometimes it is just the quickest route to working things out.
Devestating -
I do have to argue slightly, though. Safewording is not, IMO, “failing to work things out.”
Maybe my language was unclear, but I was most definitely not referring to safewords when I said that. I was referring to situations wherein issues are not resolved. In which case, you are very right. I will tweak that; it’s not at all what I wanted to say.
May (And I guess this is relevant to Devestating’s comment as well) -
In all honesty, I don’t define words like “yellow” and “green” as safewords, in the way I would like to use safewords in my scenes. I think they’re often thought of as safewords because the emphasis, especially when learning about communication in scene, is that safewords are a way to communicate outside one’s established roles.
Which is just a fancy way of saying it’s easier to stay in the mindset of the scene if communication is encoded. I don’t think I like the idea of communication being encoded. (Much in the way that you now just say “please soften up a little.”)
I see safewords as the communication that indicates the mindset of the scene is ending. That’s rather different.
Oh and, though you already know this, when I said “yellow” that one time, my top said, “red,” and I never thought it out of place for him to do so.
That is because you are a smartypants. And also cute.
Devestating -
Yes, I can definitely see the reverse echoes in a lot of what you’ve been writing about.
Also, your comment made me laugh.
Yes, because what we were trying to do was give up every iota of control IN a consensual relationship. That was our bubble.
Um…doesn’t all this fall apart if I simply dismiss “consensual” as being the be-all and end-all of the relationship I’m pursuing?
That said…most of what you say I agree with. Hard not to agree with. It is pretty much how it is.
I will tweak that; it’s not at all what I wanted to say.
If you do tweak the content of your post, please use appropriate HTML to indicate that you have done so. I can show you how to make it look pretty if you’d like.
This will give you geek points and make me all hot and bothered when I see you tonight. :)
That’s cool, Maymay. I never heard of such a thing. (I love standards.)
Alexis -
Yes, because what we were trying to do was give up every iota of control IN a consensual relationship. That was our bubble.
Although you and I are smart enough to recognize the possibility of consciously pursuing nonconsensual relationships (you may choose to, I don’t) most people just plain aren’t. Most people take the consensual nature of their relationships for granted, and then run up against all sorts of crazy issues when they try and play with boundaries like that one.
Um…doesn’t all this fall apart if I simply dismiss “consensual” as being the be-all and end-all of the relationship I’m pursuing?
Maybe. You might also have to move to a country with different laws; in the US there are still some things that the courts consider to be activities that cannot be consented to. Totally different point, and I realize I have no clue if you even live in the US anyway.
Hard not to agree with. It is pretty much how it is.
Most of these misconceptions spring up around people who just have no idea ‘how it is.’ So much of what I now think of as completely logical or natural instinct was learned through experience. It would be simply hilarious to go back in time and talk to me four years ago. God, I was so precocious. I probably drove my scene friends crazy.
One of the things that I’ve seen a couple of people writing about has been the fact that there’s a lot of stuff written about creating the right effect in the sub or bottom, and very little about how to make sure the top has a good trip.
And some of it is, I’m betting, a certain amount of ‘the top is in charge of their own trip’ assumption (“the top is running things, so of course they can handle their own emotional needs”). And a certain amount of this notion that the whole point of the kink thing is to create some sort of change or transformation in the bottom, which the top facilitates.
And the thing is, I’m not satisfied with that approach as a sub. I mean, sure, I do a lot of wacky mysticism crap with my kink, transformative experience, descent into the underworld, whatever you want to call it, but I’m not the only one on this ride. And sometimes the trip is about me, and sometimes it’s about him, and sometimes we’re doing something together and so we both need to do the headspace work.
I suspect the ‘tops don’t have safewords’ is part of the sub/bottom focused stuff. More stuff written about subdrop than top drop. More “how to create the right mental space for the bottom” than “how to create the right mental space for the top”. And so on.
Dw3t-hthr:
“a certain amount of this notion that the whole point of the kink thing is to create some sort of change or transformation in the bottom, which the top facilitates.”
Agreed. That is very typical “old guard” mentality. And, frankly, isn’t always applicable. I get where people are coming from with the thought that, once I’ve bottomed, I’ll want to top (a la, traditional leather subculture mentality). However, while that may be where they want to go, I don’t have the same destination in mind.
It’s a big thing in the esoteric kink materials that I’ve read, too. A lot of “You do your magic by using the bottom as a medium and shaping your will onto them” or “You guide the bottom into the Underworld where they meet their inner demons” or whatever else — all of it about shaping the experience of the bottom to a particular end. Nothing about how to do the mystical stuff as a top.
The author I found complaining about this actually had someone tell him, in response to, “What about topping as a transformative experience”, “For that, you should bottom.” Where I come from, we call this Not Useful.
Great post, and a timely topic.
I find this links in to the research I did for the article I wrote on aftercare for dominants. I hit the same brick wall as you: dominants don’t need aftercare, dominants don’t need safewords. Excuse me, but we need both, and both are linked, lol!
Ms160
Ms160s Abode
FetishLore
I think that dominants need to be taught that it’s okay if they have or use a safe word.
Safe word to me is just really another term for communicate.
Control is something that a dominant certainly needs, but sometimes even dominants can get in to a scene just as deep as the submissive. That’s a wonderful thing to have happen when a scene clicks like that, but sometimes it can lead to bad places emotionally, physically for the dominant just as easily as it can the submissive and sometimes being in control just isn’t enough to stop it from happening.
None of the books I read when I first started out in D/s said a dominant could have a safe word. No one I talked to that had more experience than me said that a dominant could use a safe word. It was always stated, and repeatedly, that the dominant had control, control, control!
I have to wonder though if it’s not a peer pressure kind of thing that keeps dominants from being taught or at least told that they can have safe words.
Are doms afraid that if they think or talk about a safe word that their friends will think them weak or a poor dominant? Are they afraid of that their submissive will find them lacking as a dom if they should say a safe word?
As a dominant I have used a safe word. I never thought less of myself or lacking in anyway for using it. I felt smarter, and actually, more in control of what was happening around me and what I was thinking and feeling during the scene.
In truth, I would hesitate before using a safeword as the top in an actual scene. I’d have to be damned sure, and I would really try to avoid it. I need to remember that I can, but I do see the scene as my responsibility.
That’s not really different from what Eileen said (“Call me crazy, but pulling abruptly out of a scene without explaining to my bottom that I’m having a problem, abandoning them in a sobbing, bleeding mess, is irresponsible.”) But it would still color my responses.
Of course, we’re talking about safewords, right? They’re not meant to be an everyday tool.
I wrote my own general response here.
Sierra,
“Are doms afraid that if they think or talk about a safe word that their friends will think them weak or a poor dominant? Are they afraid of that their submissive will find them lacking as a dom if they should say a safe word?“
Not being one myself, I can only speak to my observations, but I would say that this is exactly what happens a lot of the time. Especially in male-dom circles, every stupid male dom is so busy trying to win their fucking pissing contest that they forget the fundamental reason why they’re doing anything at all. They might as well all just go back to the lonely corners from whence they came, if it were up to me.
But it’s not up to me, is it? I’m a bottom, after all. Control is in the hands of the top, isn’t it? *sigh*
Dw3t-Hthr-
“I suspect the ‘tops don’t have safewords’ is part of the sub/bottom focused stuff. More stuff written about subdrop than top drop.”
Curiously, I hear way, way more about top-drop than I do about bottom drop. I think that this may be because I’m personal friends with a couple of tops who regularly drop, so I get their experiences relayed back to me often.
It bothers me that so much oof the positive emotional development that BDSM can provide for people is cut out of the ‘top’ part of the relationship. And I can see how, as a sub who’s specifically aware of aspects like that one, you’d be bothered by it.
I’m surpirsed more subs *aren’t* bothered by it, actually. It doesn’t seem to occur to a lot of people that those kinds of transformative experiences should be had on both sides. Ugh. Why are we here, then? Just as tools to be objectified by bottoms?
Mistress 160-
That was a great article!
My “research” about this topic wasn’t research, but rather the gradual identification of a specific need. I never specifically went out and tried to find resources to give me the asnwer, as I didn’t exactly know what I was asking.
Sierra -
I think a lot of this comes back to encoded communication within roles. The “role” that tops are taught to play is so incredibly narrow in places that communication of one’s own needs just doesn’t get addressed. Again with the objectification thing; w’ere not expected to be human, we’re not expected to need aftercare, we’re not expected to have needs at all.
Ugh.
And the “bigger, badder, scarier” thing? Absolutely part of a common top mentality. Exactly the same mentality that leads people to set up scenes around competitive safewording. Like it’s bad to have limits. Like your scene identity is determined not by how you choose to play mentally, but by who can make bigger flames or louder cracks or more blood.
Ugh again.
Devestatingly-
I think you hit the nail on the head with your comment on “not an everyday tool.” If you’re still trying really hard to avoid using it, and still trying to take conscious responsibility, then the scene is probably still in your control. I would use a safeword if after I consciously *tried* to get myself back on track, I could not. If something was out of control in a way I didn’t feel comfortable with. There’s a touch of pride in that – we feel like we should be able to take on all that reasponsibility. But the reality is, sometimes it’s more responsibly to simply say “I’m not in control any more.”
I liked your post. I will posssibly hop over there and comment.
Longest comment evar. Woosh.
To throw in my two cents about Top Drop.
In theatre (less so in film production), there is a recognizable depression which seizes the full cast following a performance. It does not matter if the performance is every night, or once in a blue moon. Energy is pushed out, and following that considerable effort, there follows a total crash.
There are less after-performance parties than many people realize.
Top Drop, as I have watched it among various Dommes, has precisely the same symptoms, responses and lapse time.
Alexis-
See, all of my theatre groups got very good at scheduling after-parties the next day. You go home, you sleep, you crash, then you drink. Worked perfectly.
I recognize the similar dynamic in some of my experiences. And then, in both scene scenarios and theatrical ones I’ve seen the “post show buzz” last for several days. The crash after such a long up period seems to be much harder.
I guess its harder for us older farts.
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