Safeword Survey – Are safewords essential in BDSM play.

This article looks at how strongly 500 safeword survey participants felt about using safewords in BDSM play.

The results of this question contrast strongly with an earlier, similar one where I asked people  whether safewords were essential in all BDSM transactions.

In that article, only switches were more likely to agree with the statement “Safewords are essential in all BDSM transactions” than not. However, when it comes to BDSM play there is, generally, agreement that safewords are essential – with some groups being more emphatic in their agreement than others. Only masters (mistresses) and slaves are more likely to think that safewords are NOT essential in play (see third chart below).

The first chart, below, shows how inclined, or not, all respondents (split by gender) were to consider safewords essential in play (the method I have used for calculating the charts is below).

Men and women are both much more likely to say safewords are essential in play, Women agreed slightly more with the statement – but not by much.

The next chart looks at whether people in different BDSM orientations (tops/dominants, switches and bottom’s/submissives) agree that safewords are essential in BDSM play

All groups are much more likely to agree with the statement than not – it’s just a question of how emphatically they agree. Switches scored more than four times as highly in agreement with the statement that safewords were essential in play than  disagreed. Tops/dominants were also in very strong agreement (the score for agree was more than three times as high as the score for disagree). Bottoms/submissives were also more likely to agree than disagree – but by a much closer margin.

When it comes to BDSM components, Masters/slaves were the only group to disagree that safewords were essential in play – and by a noticeable margin. There were 88 M/s responses to the question.

D/s and S/m people showed a close degree of agreement with the statement that safewords are essential in play. However, S/m people were far less likely to disagree with the statement.

Data used in this article

The article uses data from a question where people were asked whether they considered safewords to be essential in BDSM play. 500 people answered the question. People were able to pick from the following responses:

• Agree
• Agree strongly
• Neither agree nor disagree
• Disagree
• Disagree strongly

To produce the charts used above I manipulated the data as follows:

• Agree (scored 1)
• Agree strongly (scored 2)
• Neither agree nor disagree (eliminated from responses)
• Disagree (scored -1)
• Disagree strongly (scored -2)

I totalled the  scores and then divided that by the total of all responses (including “Neither agree nor disagree”, in order that a high neutral response would influence the outcome by reducing both negative and positive scores). I expressed that in percentages for convenience.

The data used is in the tables below

What is your gender?	(All)
Count of RespondentID		Safewords are essential in BDSM play
What is your BDSM orientation?	How would you describe the most important component of your BDSM Dynamic?	Agree	Agree strongly	Disagree	Disagree strongly	Neither agree nor disagree	Grand Total
Bottom/Submissive	Dominant/Submissive	42	38	38	40	32	190
	Master/Slave	5	4	9	27	10	55
	Sadist/Masochist	16	3	7	1	4	31
Bottom/Submissive Total		63	45	54	68	46	276
Switch	Dominant/Submissive	11	14	7		15	47
	Master/Slave	1	2	1		2	6
	Sadist/Masochist	15	7	5	1	9	37
Switch Total		27	23	13	1	26	90
Top/Dominant	Dominant/Submissive	12	24	16	18	13	83
	Master/Slave	1	1	4	16	5	27
	Sadist/Masochist	9	7	1	2	5	24
Top/Dominant Total		22	32	21	36	23	134
Grand Total		112	100	88	105	95	500
What is your gender?	Male
Count of RespondentID		Safewords are essential in BDSM play
What is your BDSM orientation?	How would you describe the most important component of your BDSM Dynamic?	Agree	Agree strongly	Disagree	Disagree strongly	Neither agree nor disagree	Grand Total
Bottom/Submissive	Dominant/Submissive	11	5	8	11	6	41
	Master/Slave	2			2	1	5
	Sadist/Masochist	5		1		2	8
Bottom/Submissive Total		18	5	9	13	9	54
Switch	Dominant/Submissive	7	7	3		12	29
	Master/Slave		1			1	2
	Sadist/Masochist	11		4	1	3	19
Switch Total		18	8	7	1	16	50
Top/Dominant	Dominant/Submissive	10	15	11	16	7	59
	Master/Slave		1	4	13	2	20
	Sadist/Masochist	6	5	1	1	3	16
Top/Dominant Total		16	21	16	30	12	95
Grand Total		52	34	32	44	37	199
What is your gender?	Female
Count of RespondentID		Safewords are essential in BDSM play
What is your BDSM orientation?	How would you describe the most important component of your BDSM Dynamic?	Agree	Agree strongly	Disagree	Disagree strongly	Neither agree nor disagree	Grand Total
Bottom/Submissive	Dominant/Submissive	30	33	30	28	25	146
	Master/Slave	3	4	9	25	9	50
	Sadist/Masochist	11	3	6	1	2	23
Bottom/Submissive Total		44	40	45	54	36	219
Switch	Dominant/Submissive	4	7	3		3	17
	Master/Slave	1	1	1			3
	Sadist/Masochist	4	7	1		6	18
Switch Total		9	15	5		9	38
Top/Dominant	Dominant/Submissive	2	7	5	2	6	22
	Master/Slave	1			2	3	6
	Sadist/Masochist	3	2		1	2	8
Top/Dominant Total		6	9	5	5	11	36
Grand Total		59	64	55	59	56	293

Related articles

• BDSM safeword survey – Are safewords essential in all BDSM transactions? (belasarius.com)
• Safeword Survey – who uses them with their principal partners (belasarius.com)
• BDSM Safeword Survey – who uses safewords with play partners (belasarius.com)
• BDSM Safeword Survey: what people said about safeword use. (belasarius.com)
• BDSM safeword survey – does age alter behaviour? (belasarius.com)