Oklahoma, Pancakes and Harder

Safewords are great. I tend to find, in non-extreme play, that the mere fact one is in place means it won't get used. It takes the potential for panic away, means you know that if you genuinely want it to, everything stops so you can push yourself and let yourself enjoy things which, if you weren't confident of this circuit-break, might be a shade too heavy to enjoy.

That said, I'm fortunate enough to be playing with someone extremely conscientious of such things, who will break to check I'm alright if he thinks I'm struggling in the wrong kind of way or if something felt a little harsher to him than he meant it to. He also knows the difference, if I'm gagged, between "oh, woe is me, I am helpless" struggling, and "shit, I can't actually breathe" struggling. He knows I have a bit of a negative history too, so he likes a nice clear green light.

We set up standing safewords the other day, which is nice for both of us, should anything spontaneous happen and we're not sure we're on the same page. It makes it all so very simple: If the word's there and they haven't used it, you're good to keep going.

You need a sort of code. As well as that all-encompassing, pulling the plug, "I say [this] and it stops straight away", I tend to find a few code words for feedback work nicely. An "I'm okay, but no further," or "slower," word, and maybe a "that's good but it's too much" word. As a domme, I'm very much the beginner: I lack the confidence to push past any resistance unless I know for a fact that it's put on, and I don't know well enough how to read that yet. If I ask "more?" and the answer is "please, no, mistress" it still takes me a while to compute that this is no level of safeword and as such is in fact a yes. But I'm getting there.

I got a new crop the other day. I found it's a nightmare trying to work out how hard you're going with it, so instead of having him count one to whatever for me, I had him count each stroke between one and ten, one being "I can't feel that", five being perfect, ten being "that hurts too much to be enjoyable". Started at a two, misjudged and got a nine, then settled around a nice seven. It helped not to have to work out if yelps were a good thing or not: if he'd wanted less, he could have cranked the number up and I'd have eased off.

I saw someone in a t-shirt which said 'the safeword is "harder"' once, which amused me quite a lot, and I've also been told of games where you use a pleasure word (a yes, a please, a partner's name or something) as a safeword so as soon as you're really enjoying it, you risk them stopping, which would probably be fantastically amusing in the right game but I can imagine might be horribly confusing if it slips. That's a bit much for me, I need my words clear.

When No doesn't mean no, something has to.