Thursday, June 29, 2006

Safe Sane and Consensual....



This posting today may not be politically correct... it might even take on a bit of a rant quality.... You have been warned !!!

i read a posting from a list i am on...from a "newish" Dominant who was rambling on a bit about the BDSM lifestyle and how some of what He sees is not His kink - fine and good ! More power to Ya i say........ However He finished up by saying "as long as everything one does is "safe sane and consensual" ...... and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.........

Who got to define what is "safe" and "sane" for me?? The last time i looked that was Sir.. no one else.... Come on now folks.. let's take a little look at what we do and ask ourselves just how "safe and sane" it really is..........

fire play - oh yeah now that is really safe.. pouring alchol on our bodies and lighting it with a match - now that is really safe and most definitely sane !!!

needle play - yup.. sticking needles into various body parts is most definitely safe and sane....... yup yup yup!

electricity play ... now that one's a real winner for the "safe and sane" award isn't it?? tie one subbie down.... and apply electricity to various body parts .. especially the private parts....... hand that Dom the safe and sane award please..

breath play ........ oh yeah.. second runner up for that award.. tie up subbie .. maybe even fuck her to keep it interesting.. all the while you prevent her from breathing........ only allowing air just before she passes out.. or after.. if you are into the real extreme edge breath play......

Personally i believe the "safe and sane" philosophy came about to protect newbies... keep 'em away from the dangerous toys/games until they were ready (and yeah .. some of them are never ready.. ) much like we protect our children.. we don't hand kids matches and encourage them to play with fire do we??

AND i do believe i have found the reason i find public play and BDSM clubs so boring .. (at least here in my part of the Great White North)... at most of the BDSM clubs .. it is a stand and show theme.. everyone gets dressed up in their BDSM finery and stand around talking about BDSM... everyone ooooh's and ahhhh's over the outfits and everyone goes home happy. At the public play parties the most i have seen is some tied to a cross or spanking bench and receiving maybe 10 or 15 minutes of flogging or hand spanking...... a far cry from the more extreme "sports" .. and everyone oooohs and ahhhhhhhhs over the play. i suspect that many into the more extreme edge play do not frequent public play parties .. and if they do.. it is for the social interaction more than the play action.

Maybe this "safe and sane" philosophy helps the ones who aren't into edge play to point fingers and question how safe and sane So and So is?? Maybe it helps them feel superior?? Maybe it helps subbies who want a black list of Doms who don't play safe and sane...

But for me at least, "safe and sane" is not in the equation anymore..... if Sir declares He wishes to try something .. then i MUST trust that He has researched all facets of the play.. has learned the dangers.. and that above all else He will keep me safe... safe by OUR definition ..not some entity "out there" somewhere.......

5 comments:

  1. Everything you listed would definitely not sound safe or sane to a vanilla person or a newbie. However, you KNOW that when you engage in those activities with your Sir you are engaging in safe and sane play. It isn't the physical acts that have to be safe or sane in and of themselves - it's the people engaging in those acts. Even simple bondage is not safe or sane if you allow a stranger (who ends up being a rapist or serial killer) to do it to you.

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  2. I don't like the SSC mantra.

    It has never made much sense to me -- not since my very earliest explorations of all of this, when *I* was that newbie in the dungeon, and some wiser, more experienced player was trying to explain the "slogan" to me... The reality was clear -- what we were engaged in was obviously NOT safe, or sane by any reasonable definition, AND (if I got what I actually wanted) there were likely to be moments when it was probably going to push beyond the limits of immediate consent...

    So? The truth was that I felt then, and I feel now, that I knew what I was after -- what I was getting into. I like (very much) Laura Antoniou's take on it all -- she's radically clear that SSC is a marketing "thing" that destoys the authenticity of our SEX... if you haven't read it, it is worth checking out. Here's the link: http://www.sexuality.org/latrans.html

    I very well remember the scene that Master and I had at OLF a couple years back. He'd put me on a St. Andrew's cross, and gone after me with great enthusiasm. He'd also given me permission to make all the noise I wanted -- a rare luxury. I'm a big, tall, strong girl, and under His ministrations, I screamed and bucked and walked that cross all over the dungeon floor. He left me black and blue and bloody and sweaty and tear soaked. It was the sort of thing that we do together when all the boundaries are down, and which we cannot engage in at home. It also scared the crap out of the newbies in the dungeon that night. We were told (the next day) by a couple of dungeon monitors, that they'd been approached by several people who literally begged them to stop that scene and "save me." Apparently, they explained to the poor dears that it was called BDSM, and that they should watch and learn...
    I guess the issue is that we need to not let others define our relationships for us. I understand the "value" of SSC at some level, but it seeks to take my reality and sanitize it and make it pedestrian. I just don't know if it is worth the price -- is being tolerated by the mainstream worth having our wings clipped? I think I much prefer the ability to soar. The tradeoff seems too much to ask.

    swan

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  3. well you know my feeling about safety and how some are consummed by being safe taht I hardly think they have fun . So just to show support I whole hartely agree with you

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  4. Anonymous8:13 am

    Maybe is it the many years you are involved in the relationship that makes it like that for you... but I can understand newcomers hanging to this definition... after all, if they want to go further, they have to know how far they can go with a sub... And SSC is the best way to show a bit of seriousness...
    I remember well Tom talking about his preference for the term RACK (Risk aware consensual kink)... and for sure, this makes more sense...

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  5. Yes, but you've got Sir, whom you totally trust and is worthy of such extreme trust. Is that normal in BDSM relationships? Is that the whole point? How do you even begin to build a trust like that? I mean wow, that's a huge responsibility for a Dom, or is that the point, too?
    I mean how and when do you get to trust someone beyond "safe and sane"?
    You have to take each case individually and never tell a general population that anything beyond "safe and sane" is okay, right?

    (Please take my comment with at least a small grain of salt. I'm speak as a curious outsider who likes to read your blog.)

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