I Don't Play With A "Safeword"

Posted on October 13, 2024
Word Count: 867

Comments 0

Did the title catch your attention? Good. It’s not what you think it is, though. I’m not some super-intense (or super stupid) sub that’s all like “I don’t need a safeword” so don’t judge me just yet.

Somewhere around when I was 19 or so I had a session go bad. I had started spiraling and I was having trouble with what was going on. It took a lot, and I mean a lot of effort to say “red” and once I finally did it was so quiet he couldn’t hear it. So of course he kept going and then I started crying and got really mad at him and he had no idea why. Bad time all around.

That was the last time I ever played with a safeword.

Now, to be clear, when I say “safeword” I mean a verbal code word that means something other than what it says on the surface. For example, the classics everyone knows are red, yellow, and (depending on how you play) green. Those aren’t just colors, they mean something else in a scene than they mean in, say, an art studio.

Something about using a code word doesn’t work for me at all. I need to be able to always say what I mean using real words. The term for this is (now this is mind blowing): “Plain English Communication.” Amazing, right? I know. I couldn’t believe it when I learned that.

I absolutely need a way to communicate when something’s wrong… and that way is to just talk. Frequently it would be “please stop” or just “stop” when I needed things to stop, and “no” occasionally, etc.

Now that’s served me very well for the past idk… 25 years. Until earlier this year when I gave up my ability to say “no” to Tim. And did that mean we had to put a safeword in place? Nah not really. Because I’d played with Tim for 2.5 years at that point, with a lot of sessions and a lot of learning between us. He knew me well enough and had learned roughly where my actual limits lie, especially since there have been times I’ve literally asked him to go harder/farther in a session than he ever intended to go. So we are at a point where I can express how much I actually don’t want him to do something, and he can consider it, and decide to do it anyway.

Originally, I just didn’t want an accidental “no” that escaped without thought to actually stop what he was doing, and then once we got farther into it, the idea of begging him to stop something I genuinely didn’t like was too hot to pass up.

But if something’s wrong, I only have to say that: “something’s wrong” or “I’m spiraling” or, frequently, just “words” if I’m a little too locked inside my head to get more than that out. It’s short for “I don’t have the words, yet, but I need to talk;” it’s not actually a code word, just a piece of a sentence shortened way down to the core element. Words are hard in subspace. And he can do what he needs to to either fix the situation, or pause everything until I can speak more. My job is just to let him know something’s wrong.

We do have one non-verbal safeword-like signal for “I can’t talk but something’s wrong or I need your attention” and it’s just snapping my fingers. It’s not something I’d do accidentally, I’d have to put some actual thought into it, but once I’ve decided “no I need attention something’s wrong,” it takes absolutely no effort or decision making power (or words) to just snap my fingers once, loud and crisp, and then we can go from there.

To be clear – I think playing without any way of communicating that something is wrong is a really fucking stupid idea. You can use safewords, you can use plain english communication, you can use whatever the fuck you want, but if you suddenly have a very real problem, you need to be able to communicate quickly with your dominant that something is very wrong because that is crucial. Inexperienced players think that the scenes are fine, they like it rough, so nothing the dominant could ever do would cause need for a safeword… Okay but what happens if a bee gets in the room and decides to fly up your nose. Like come on, do you seriously not want some way to tell your partner that you’re allergic to bees and you’re about to need a hospital trip? What if you were gagged at the time? What then? This sort of thing isn’t about “he hits so hard and I don’t like it” but “holy shit I think something broke.”

Emergencies happen. Bad things happen. Sometimes it’s physical, sometimes it’s mental or emotional. You need some way of communicating that. Safeword. English (or whatever your language is). An item to drop. A noise to make. Something.

So yeah. I don’t play with a “safeword” but I sure as hell don’t play without a safety net. Always have some way of communicating when something goes wrong.