A Serious Discussion About Safewords

Many people introduce safewords into their kinky activities. A safeword is, essentially, a prearranged signal to end or slow down an activity. Think of it as a code word that differentiates fun (or at least consensual) pain or discomfort from un-fun (or non-consensual) pain or discomfort. The use of safe words allows the partner doing the hitting to know that the other party is enjoying things without asking them if their screams of “OWWWWWWWWWW FUCK!” are a compliment on technique or an expression of a heartfelt need to stop the current activity.

The most common safewords are based on traffic signals, typically “Red” (stop immediately), “Yellow” (don’t stop but slow down and proceed with caution), and “Green” (go ahead). This may cause awkward arousal during a driver’s license exam, but is generally still common practice. There are variations, such as giving someone a rubber ball when they are gagged. If the person needs to use a safeword in such a situation, they let go of the ball.

However, such safeword variations are often assigned only out of necessity, and only for a single scenario or circumstance. It is the thesis of the current post that the BDSM community could benefit from a wider variety of safewords to indicate more unusual, but still critical, indications of circumstances which might occur during a scene but not be readily obvious to one’s partner.

Therefore, the following safewords are suggested as additions to the traditional Red/Yellow/Green safewords. For simplicity’s sake, the traditional scheme of using colors has been retained. Individuals prone to screaming out the names of crayons during scenes may wish to use the names of fish instead to avoid confusion. Individuals aroused by Haddock are advised to stick to the traditional color scheme words, unless their partner has been forewarned. Remember, consent is a two way street people. Nobody likes having their ears non-consensually filled with fish words.

With these caveats in mind, we hereby present the…

EXPANDED LIST OF BDSM SAFEWORDS

Red: Stop.
Yellow: Slow down.
Green: Go.
Blue: Shit, I forget to set the DVR for Game of Thrones! Get this blindfold off and give me the remote right now!
Lime: I just saw your DVD collection and we need to end this right now and never see each other again. I try to be open minded, but owning the remake of “The Wicker Man” is where I draw the line.
Black: Wow, black boots, oh my god that’s so original, you’re totally turning me on with your banality and lack of imagination regarding footwear. You must have put entire seconds of thought into that. No, really, my underwear just exploded into flames.
Aquamarine: Your BDSM playlist sucks and if I have to listen to one more god-damn asshole who thinks they’re being original by playing the theme to True Blood I’m going to non-consensually choke a fucker.
Brown: Are you sure you want to do anal? Because I ate a hell of a lot of bran fiber this morning.
Teal: We can do that, but if I have to steam clean this carpet to get my deposit back you’re paying for it.
Brushed Silver: I’ve been bad, take me to Target and make me buy picture frames!
Avocado: Avocado would be really good on tacos. We should go get some tacos when we’re done. And put avocado on them. Can we call the scene and just get some tacos? I’ve got an avocado and I know a place.
Mauve: How about you dial the pretentious monologue back a little bit there, super-domme.
Brick: This is great and all, but I need to get some shit done in Skyrim. Could you hand me the Xbox Controller? Don’t worry, I can do both at once.
Khaki: Giggle break. May also be used for “Fifty bucks, same as in town! Hah, I just got that.”
Coral: Ow ow ow! Toe cramp, toe cramp, toe cramp!
Cyan: And I just remembered I told the realtor they could come by and show the house today. How quick can you untie these knots?

In addition, sometimes when using safewords it can be beneficial to have a series of signals that can note when a situation is fine at first, but may change if the activity continues or escalates. As in the following examples:

Lavender: Are you sure the door is latched?
Plum: Because the cat just entered the room.
Purple: And the cat looks interested.
Violet: And the cat has now entered the scene. This feels weird. Mr. Mittens cannot provide informed consent, give me a minute to put him in the bathroom with some fuzzy toys and a treat.

Pink: Counting the hits is giving me weird Sesame Street flashbacks.
Chiffon: And I think I kind of like it.
Crimson: TELL ME WHY SHARING IS GOOD AND BEAT ME LIKE A RENTED SNUFFLEUPAGUS!

Of course there are countless more. Feel free to leave some of your own suggestions in the comments, and remember to always play safe.

Copyright Jerry Jones. Unauthorized use is prohibited.

Thank Yous!

Thank you to Pearl for her very kind review at:

Review: Little Submissions Collected Short Stories Pt. 1

Thank you to the people who bought the book, it is genuinely appreciated.

And thanks to everyone who reads, comments, and follows. 🙂

-V.

All Right, Let’s Talk Deal

Greetings loyal readers:

I think I’ve figured out a way we can both get something out of this blog. You want to read the sort of thing I write, I want to become popular enough to sell out and retire.

Well, eventually. I also want to write more popular stuff. What I write is a niche of a niche. Most people seem more interested in female domination fantasy than what I see as the (healthy) reality.

So, couple of options. One, I start writing the fantasy. Make up story names with “Blackmail” in the title, do forced feminization, strapon sex, write about chateaus and Baroness’ with armies of specially trained lobotomized robot sex eunuchs. Ponytails, lots of ponytails. Problem is, even that isn’t going to make me rich.

If I’m going to sell out, I’m going to sell out big.

So the other option is, write genre fiction, which has a broader audience, and keep the female domination relationship content. Anita Blake does quite well financially writing her particular version of vampire genre porn. Better than I do at least.

Problem is, that requires plot, structure, dialogue, things like that. You know, book stuff. Maybe even character development. I pretty much write sex stories. Sex stories are a giant cheat in a lot of literary problem areas. I need my readers to identify with a character. Well, my characters want to have sex. If my readers are reading my stuff, they’re probably thinking that way themselves. I need conflict. Okay, my character wants an orgasm. I need resolution. Fine, they resolve themselves into a wet spot on the sheets. You get the idea.

Did you know that when I started writing this blog, I liked to gag the male character because it made it easier to write dialogue? True story.

So I need to practice writing books. With plots. And stuff.

Gonna need feedback on that.

Wanna know one of the secrets of being a writer? Everyone wants feedback, hardly anyone ever wants to give it. And unless your friend is the rare person who will tell you when you’ve just shit a load of toner on a dead tree and need to go back to the drawing board, friends don’t make the best feedback audience. They’ve already probably got a lot of the same interests as you, and are more likely to see the good in your story.

You need angry, liquored up stranger feedback if you want to get better.

That which does not kill you might just teach you noun-pronoun agreement.

So I have this book I started. I figure I’ll put it on here, a chapter at a time as I get them done. These chapters will be longer than my usual stories, and I’ll probably try for one a week and hit one every other week (realistically). They will be connected to each other.

When the book is done, I’ll compile it into one big book and self-publish through lulu or some other PoD. I’m also going to offer electronic versions, because some of my favorite readers are overseas. I’d be glad to sell them dead tree versions as well, but I know international shipping can be brutal, and customs officers are a fickle lot. I want them to be able to get a copy if they want one.

I figure sales figures are as good a form of feedback as any. And if they’re good, they buy me beer. Bonus.

So that’s the plan. Might change, nothing is written in stone. But I’m going to drop the first chapter of the book I was working on in after I post this. It’s largely been done before, I was going to use it as an opening chapter / prologue.

Feel free to comment, it’s always welcome. Hopefully this will keep me interested and motivated to keep writing. The first book will just be porn. The second I’m hoping to do more genre fiction with a female domination… thing… thrown in. They say a writer needs to read and write, so that’s what I’m going to do.

Oh, the other possibility which has come up is audio recordings of the stuff I’ve written so far. I ain’t reading them, but I might have a lady (my own ma’am actually) who is willing to give it a try and see how it works out. I’d probably sell those at 99 cents apiece, if anyone is interested. Mostly as a means of just giving people a way to throw some money my way if they felt like it, but I need to look into hosting costs and logistics of selling mp3’s before that can happen.

Thanks everyone, feel free to offer thoughts or suggestions on the above. I firmly believe based on the comments I have some of the best readers of any porn blog out there, and really appreciate having you all on board.

V.

PSA

To whoever found this blog by searching for “she took revenge on his testicles”, I hope you found whatever you were looking for.

Reblogged from Lolita Wolf, you can make a tax deductible donation to the Leather Archives’ Museum Women’s Leather History Project.

Because we got a history too, yo.

http://www.leatherarchives.org/wlhp/

A Brief Note

As much as one hates to sound one’s own trumpet, I thought I would mention that awhile back I had a short story published in dead tree form.

Coin Operated, in the K is for Kinky Anthology edited by the always charming Alison Tyler.

Link

We now return you to your regularly scheduled internet.