Tuesday, August 14, 2007

On Safewords

I've been following an ongoing discussion about butch/femme relationships (among other things) at Sinclair's blog, and while I'm not ready to tackle what *I* think about various gender expressions and sexuality, I did note an interesting comment from one of her readers about safewords.

Actually, I'm going to go back and find the comment so that I can give credit where credit is due: Kimi Dreams (here's her blog) commented on this post by Sinclair and mentioned that not all BDSM relationships utilize a safeword. All of this is to set the stage for me to say: we started out without safewords, Daddy and I. It worked at first, as we both grew more confident in our desire and in what we could expect from one another. I think we both wanted to be safeword-free for the duration of our relationship because that's the kind of friction that is most ignitable between us: what he wants to take from me and how I am able to give it up, and really, I don't want to be able to say no, and he doesn't want me to either.

But we ran into a problem. I have, as so many of us do, a very rocky time in my sexual past that occasionally rears up and bites me when I am not expecting it. One afternoon, Daddy began lining my breasts, belly, and clavicles with clothespins. The pain was searing, so intense that I couldn't keep still and in fact barely kept from screaming. I cried and thrashed but he refused to yield. Suddenly I was beyond terror -- I lost control of my emotions and began hysterically crying. I felt myself begin to panic (I have panic disorder -- normally this wouldn't happen in this situation, though) and tried to use my usual methods to calm down but the pain pushed aside everything I attempted.

"If you need me to stop, say the word," he told me, another pin biting into the thin skin above my right collarbone, but I didn't know any such word. "I don't know it, oh god, just take them off, please, please," I screamed, panic constricting my throat and roughening my voice. He saw, too late, that I was far beyond the state he had intended to put me in and immediately removed the pins, gathering me into his arms and talking to me until I was in control again.

After that, we established safewords. I can't speak for everyone in this kind of relationship, but I know for us that we need to be able to tell each other, very quickly, if things move in a bad direction. And yet I still wish I could have held on to the ideal of a safeword-free relationship...part of that is just my own pride. But I have yet to safeword because he was hurting me "too" much. So far only my own mind has overwhelmed me to that degree.

3 comments:

Essin' Em said...

Reading your story terrified me, because I can't imagine being in a similar situation.

I *personally* love my safeword. I've never had to use it, and I think I've actually been able to take more pain, discipline, etc, because I KNOW my parter WILL stop should I say it, and that I'll always have some kind of out.

But I do like the fantasy of having a safeword free relationship, where we'd both just instinctively know...but given my history, I don't think that'll ever work for me. Thank you for sharing your story though....

-Essin' Em

M. Monkey said...

It was a pretty terrifying experience, honestly, so I think your reaction is completely justified. It was a difficult thing for me to square in my mind, since normally I am a huge proponent of safewords in all BDSM-type situations (and, really, wouldn't it be great to just have a safeword for life in general?) but we really wanted to give this a try. But it didn't work, and that's okay.

Thanks for reading -- I read you too! :)

Kimi Dreams said...

We have sort of a different take on safe words (and thanks for mentioning my comment, glad I could spark a post).

We don't do safe words but we do do "condition reports". This allows me to say "my hand is cold" or "I'm feeling light headed" without telling him to stop. He can then decide if he should stop or not, but it's not ME ending the scene.