It is cool when I attend an advance rope class and within 30 seconds because everyone else has been doing rope, we get over in a minute the agony of what to discuss about safety.
What I wish people would talk about doesn't happen which leads me to believe people are throwing up safety comments to somehow convince others they know what they are talking about. Given this particular behavior is a common part of my life, it annoys me.
I try to understand and continue to engage in listening or reading in the kinky world but it often goes into the weeds, pops up with misinformation or people start hand waving away the issues. If they aren't listening then it isn't worth the effort to communicate. It doesn't matter if it is a FetLife thread, a hallway conversation at a kink event or on some kinky mailing list.
Little actions like having EMT scissors on hand don't imply things are safe in kinky hot sexual situations.It is just a tool lying on the floor or stuck in someone's clothing. There is when and how to use it.
Rope Around the Neck
For example, on a tamer bondage mailing list, I responded to a comment about playing with rope and rope around the neck. The complete response and context doesn't really matter. The important part is what I said in the middle:and then
The real question is do you know your partner? Do you know when they have a face that says things aren't going well? What is their happy face? What is their look when they are floating and not thinking?
Do you understand when you are floating and not thinking?
My advice is to start off slow. Communicate frequently. Learn what your ropes are doing and what isn't good. Don't leave the person tied alone. Have EMT scissors handy (don't want pointy normal scissors or knives used in a panic situation).
When the communication is more subtle and less verbal and you have learned what ties are slipping and doing bad things, advance your play.
Play, communicate and learn. Advance your play....The thread quickly went off into the weeds.One reaction was about the dangers of "breath play" and name dropping happened. Another reaction was "thanks for the information". When I tried to clarify the breath play issue, it went off into the weeds about my use of the phase "edge play".
I stopped sending things into the mailing list.
Meeting in Private
Yet again I read a thread about "first meeting in private". My read of it was that some woman was being bullied by some man to meet in private for the first time face to face. The replies by many was that this was a bad sign or a "red flag". Others however argued "why not?". I commented that there is risk to both people meeting like this with the man possibly getting a variety of criminal complaints filed such as assault, sexual assault, kidnapping, etc.The gender is really unimportant but male "top" and female "bottom" is the common situation.At some point in the middle of the thread, some male started throwing around the term "fear mongering". He was discounting this issue. I wasn't happy reading his profile either. There is an educational disconnect from my read.
Yet again the issue boils down to communication, situational awareness and how good you are in judging people. If you can't read people and don't know them, stay away from private or highly controlled situations until you know them better or know their reputation better. Heck they could be telling you they are someone else that has a great repurtation and until you meet them, you will not know if they are actually that person!
Of course there are ways to mitigate meeting in private the first time. One was mentioned and nothing much said about using a "safe call". Another one I advocate is meeting with a common friend. There are other solutions.
The clueless and the predators are in the majority online.
Hand Waving with "Safe, Sane and Consensual
The phrase "I am Safe, Sane and Consensual" kills me. You are? Really? Prove it!I read comments about SSC, RACK and other things. It almost seems like people are selling something with these comments.My read is "Play with me! If I mess you up, it will be your fault!"
If they are throwing out terms like "dom", "sub", "SSC", "consent" and other things without any form of real communication and understand of what each side needs and wants and doesn't want, it is a bad sign.
If you get this far in my blog, please read the blog entry "ABC's of Abuse and Kink" by Silverdreams.She is a good soul, a good friend and knows her stuff in the Boston BDSM scene.
My Care, My Concerns and People who are Important to Me!
My first concerns are about general trust and who I am playing with as a top. I have similar concerns about others who play as bottoms. The key element is the people who don't get it or our "out to get" something besides having kinky sexual fun. Silver dream has a wonderful post about these "don't understand" issues with her post "Running Standing Still".I don't want to be accused of assault, sexual assault, rape and kidnap. I don't want to be at events where "minors" are present which in the state of Pennsylvania can be under the age of 21 or in the state of Ohio can be under the age of 19. I also don't want friends and new people hurt, raped, damaged permanently or killed by the posturing fools.
SSC: Safe Sane and Consensual
I see this term thrown around constantly like it is something that will make the world a better place. It is used as a reason for why good things will happen.The thing is that the origin of this term has nothing to do with this. It is a slogan to explain to the mainstream that someone beating another person's bottom is "okay" in a sense. There isn't anything inherently wrong with enjoying or providing pain. There isn't any mental health issue or other issues. Check out this web page on the Leather Leadership Conference folks on "SSC".
RACK: Risk Aware Consensual Kink
This is another hand wave of sorts. I can't find a copy of the original posting but it is attributed to Gary Switch in various places and his comments can be found in various web sites such as this "Origin of RACK: RACK vs. SSC"I appreciate the value of RACK. It is something to strive for but it isn't clear to me at all when someone has achieved the state of being ":Risk Aware".
I drive to work all the time doing more then 10 miles. I have no idea what level of risk I am taking by doing so. I am aware that the first and last mile have the higher risk factors, the more you drive has a higher risk factor, living away from a city has a higher risk factor and certain states have high risk factors. Spending time and energy to be aware of the current evolving understanding of those risks isn't going to stop me from driving. One can easily Google traffic stats and find this stuff.
PRICK: Personal Responsibility, Informed Consensual Kink
This is a term I subscribed to if I understand it correctly. I am not really trying to label things so deep diving into it is not something I have done seriously. It isn't clear who coined this term but it seems to have been around since 2009.Some definitions of PRICK seem to be the same as RACK, one I found is "PRICK essentially encourages each participant to take responsibility for his/her own actions, as well as being informed (aware of) the risks involved."
In the end, I take responsibility to make sure what is happening with who I am playing with and more importanty myself! I don't play when I am upset and I stop play when things have gone in an unexpected and unclear direction where I am worried. Sometimes those unexpected directions are as simple as my not being able to "read" who I am playing with. I pull back.
Rope Bondage
Going back to that thread I was trying to be helpful on. Well, eventually someone saidRope bondage is safe ....This was in reaction to my expression that rope in my book is edge play. It was a muddled discussion since everyone had different definitions of "edge play" and had different definitions of "rope play". I stopped at that point.
I have no idea whether they were thinking about simple wrist ties and adding elements like water that make the rope swell, become tighter and impossible to untie without cutting. There was mention of suspensions and the like. Way too much hand waving all over the map for my taste.
Rope can be used in many many different ways. A ground position when moved to steps can cause the same effects as an inversion with the head down. Rope can be around the eyes, the mouth, the nose, the entire body and so forth causing a variety of risks. If a gag can become lethal with breathing problems, gag reflexes and with other things like vomiting, rope has even more risks.
Some resources on the web for consideration:
My Concerns
The safety yapping about "SSC", "RACK", "PRICK" and so on doesn't change the risk of people who don't get it, are abusers, haven't a clue or simply don't care. I worry about being mixed in with this chatter.I have a solid background in renovations, mechanical systems, physics and other areas. I can size up a hard point pretty well in a short amount of time. If I am puzzled, you will see me doing things that may make no sense like walking to the side of a room and looking up or pounding on something to listen to it.
If I still have doubts, I will hang my suspension rig and then hang on it trying to bounce. This is the "big old boy" test. It is a imperfect and poor testing but can give significant clues about structural integrity. It will not tell if something else is happening that will invalidate things like someone moving furniture upstairs, train causing vibrations that comes by later, etc.
Another thing I do is look around at the surroundings, the people and try to keep vigilant. Everything is dynamic and if I don't understand something from my street wise smarts then I hold back and try to address it.
This is just the start. I haven't even gotten to the rope, who I am tying, how I am doing mentally and other aspects.
I filter through immediate risks pretty quickly in my head. I don't explain that thinking. I boil what could take 3 or more hours down to 10 minutes and keep some type of communication active during play. I am present in the scene with who I am playing with. If not, I don't play or stop playing.
The labels don't work for me. All I have is my efforts to be honest as I can be, balance my kinky needs that are risky against safety and work to be a positive contributing member of the community. I make mistakes. I own them.
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