queerkinkster-inactive:

tallulahtightrope:

punlich:

Look I’ll be blunt here

if you only depend on safewords and you don’t discuss signs of unacceptable distress with your partners

The sort of signs that indicate that a partner is not only not consenting anymore but is unable to communicate that lack of consent (including through a safe word).

then you are a rape risk.

You may have already raped or assaulted someone in the scene without even knowing it.

And if you don’t fix that soon you may rape or assault someone in scene in the future.

How the fuck is this so hard for tops and doms to accept?

Absolutely. Safewords lure people into a false sense of security. I feel like they’re held up as a great mechanism when actually they completely take responsibility away from the dominant/top in a really dangerous way. The responsibility then falls onto the submissive to speak up if they aren’t happy or are withdrawing consent. I don’t have a safeword for myself because when I’m deep in a scene my communication ability deteriorates – I might be able to say “stop” but not pull out some random word from the depths of my mind.

dommymcdommerson and I have this conversation fairly often (not because of any problems, just because we really like to talk mechanics of kink). Safewords are wonderful active methods of expressing distress, but they are NOT sufficient. Tops need to be mindful of the range of reactions that a bottom may have, and how the bottom may express them. For example (and this is only one of a dozen possibilities), freezing is a very common response to trauma (real or imagined), and if a bottom becomes non-responsive, a check-in is required.

As a prodomme who often deals with traumatized clients, this shit is INCREDIBLY important. I’ve seen all of these in clients, and if you don’t watch for them you can really seriously hurt somebody physically or psychologically.

You have to watch CLOSELY.

Also I think you should just check in with each other frequently in general.  I always do with clients unless specifically asked not to, and I also think it’s important that when I’m doing stuff as a lifestyle sub (which is what I am) that I check in with my top to make sure they’re ok because submissives aren’t the only one who can have their consent violated