Tag: safeword

BDSM safeword survey – does age alter behaviour?

This article looks at how people who answered the safeword survey said they used safewords and whether this differed for older or younger respondents.

It does. There are large variations according to age and also dependant on whether the BDSM interaction is with a relationship partner or a play partner.

The survey, of course, isn’t representative of anything except the views of people who took part. It’s important to note that some of the age groups are quite small. There were only eight people aged 18-20 (all were women) and four over 70 (all men). The other groups ranged in size from 77 to 148 so are more likely to reflect a spread of opinion (496 of the 533 people in the sample answered the question).

safeword use by age

Only 18-20 year olds were more likely to use safewords with both relationship partners and with pay partners.

Over all the age groups, when it came to relationship partners, every group except the 18-20s said they were more likely not to use safewords (other than people of 70 or older where the decision was split 50-50).

When it comes to BDSM interactions with play partners, five of the seven age groups said they were more likely to use safe words than not. The two age-groups that said they were less likely to use safewords (21-29 and 30-39 year olds) only did so by a margin of two or three per cent.

Data for this article

The data for this article was compiled from that contained in the table below.

Thinking of BDSM interactions with your principal relationship partner(s) and safewords…
Which category below includes your age? I always use a safeword I mostly use a safeword I mostly DON’T use a safeword I never use a safeword Grand Total
Female 18-20 6 1 1 8
21-29 10 7 6 27 50
30-39 22 5 20 46 93
40-49 21 10 19 46 96
50-59 9 4 7 19 39
60-69 2 1 2 2 7
Female Total 70 28 54 141 293
Male 21-29 8 2 2 10 22
30-39 12 8 12 15 47
40-49 12 9 4 30 55
50-59 13 6 11 23 53
60-69 8 3 3 4 18
70 or older 1 1 1 1 4
Male Total 54 29 33 83 199
Grand Total 124 57 87 224 492
Thinking of BDSM interactions with play partners and safewords…
Which category below includes your age? I always use a safeword I mostly use a safeword I mostly DON’T use a safeword I never use a safeword Grand Total
Female 18-20 6 2 8
21-29 15 5 14 16 50
30-39 28 14 25 26 93
40-49 36 13 19 28 96
50-59 13 6 9 11 39
60-69 2 2 1 2 7
Female Total 100 40 70 83 293
Male 21-29 9 7 3 3 22
30-39 14 13 13 7 47
40-49 15 12 11 17 55
50-59 18 7 14 14 53
60-69 10 3 3 2 18
70 or older 2 1 1 4
Male Total 68 43 45 43 199
Grand Total 168 83 115 126 492

Background

This is the third article about the safeword survey I recently conducted. More information about the terms and ideas I use in these surveys can be found here. Information about the demographics of this survey is here.

This article can be compared with an earlier one, looking at how people use safewords with their principal relationship partners.

Related articles

BDSM Safeword Survey – who uses safewords with play partners

BelasariusThe safeword survey survey asked the question “Thinking of BDSM interactions with your play partner(s) and of safewords…” and then asked how likely the respondent was to use a safeword.

500 of the 533 people in the sample answered the question.

This article looks at the use of safewords with play partners and looks at the differences that characterised respondents to the survey, based on their BDSM orientation.

Switches use safewords more.

Safeword Survey play partners switch top dominant bottom submissive

I looked just at those people who always use safewords or never use safewords, crosstabbed with their BDSM orientation (Chart 4). Both switches and Tops/dominants said they were more likely to always use a safeword with play partners than to never use a safeword. By contrast, bottoms/submissives stated they were more likely to never use a safeword.

This contrasts with the way people use safewords with their principal relationship partners, where far fewer said they used safewords.

Safewords – and numbers of play partners

I asked respondents how many people they played with in a year. I thought it might be interesting to look at whether the number of play partners people said they had affected the way they used safewords.

Bottoms/submissives

bottom submissive play partner safeword use

Bottoms/submissives who said they only played with one person in the last 12 months are much more likely to never use a safeword than they are to use one all the time. But bottoms and submissives with low or moderate numbers of play parters (between two and five) said they are more likely to use a safeword all the time than not to use one at all.By contrast those who said played with larger numbers of people may be more devil-may-care and are much more likely to never use a safeword than always to use one.

Switches

Switch safeword use

 

Switches contrasted sharply with both bottoms/submissives and tops/dominants. Throughout the sample switch respondents stated they were more likely to always use a safeword than to never use a safeword. And, with a couple of exceptions, the more play partners a respondent had, the more likely this was to be what they said.

Tops/Dominants

Top and dominant use of safewords

Tops/dominants with a single plat partner said they were much more likely never to use a safeword than to always use one. But for every other no. of partners the reverse was true. Though the proportion always using a safeword was very much higher than the proportion that never use a safeword, for every number of partners other than one, the levels of safeword use reported were fairly level in comparison with switches – where it respondents reported that the more partners they had the more likely they were to use a safeword all the time.

Data for this article.

The table below shows the numbers of respondents from which the charts above were compiled. Some of the groups are very small.

Thinking of BDSM interactions with play partners and safewords…
No of play partners I always use a safeword I mostly DON’T use a safeword I mostly use a safeword I never use a safeword All
Bottom/Submissive 1 32 18 7 53 110
2 22 18 7 12 59
3 10 14 9 7 40
4 5 7 7 4 23
5 4 2 4 2 12
“5-10” 4 6 3 7 20
“10 or more” 2 2 3 5 12
Bottom/Submissive Total 79 67 40 90 276
Switch 1 12 6 4 4 26
2 5 3 2 4 14
3 6 4 4 1 15
4 3 1 2 6
5 5 2 1 8
“5-10” 6 2 8 1 17
“10 or more” 3 1 4
Switch Total 40 17 22 11 90
Top/Dominant 1 8 6 3 15 32
2 11 8 4 4 27
3 11 8 5 3 27
4 5 1 4 2 12
5 2 2 1 1 6
“5-10” 6 4 2 1 13
“10 or more” 8 6 3 17
Top/Dominant Total 51 35 22 26 134
Total 170 119 84 127 500

Background

This is the third article about the safeword survey I recently conducted. More information about the terms and ideas I use in these surveys can be found here. Information about the demographics of this survey is here.

This article can be compared with an earlier one, looking at how people use safewords with their principal relationship partners.

Related articles

BDSM People who like “pain” and safewords

BelasariusOne of the things I usually ask in my surveys is for people to say how interested they are in aspects of BDSM interactions – things like “pain“, “control”, “service”, “bondage”, “exhibitionism“, etc.

In the context of safe words I thought it would be interesting to see how people who enjoy pain one of the intrinsically riskier BDSM practices – use safe words.

Looking at the sample as a whole (500 people answered this question) 43% of people who said “pain is essential to me” NEVER use a safeword.  27% always use a safe word. Even among those who say they dislike pain the biggest group (42%) say they never use a safe word (33% say they always do). The only group where the largest response was that they always use a safe word were among those who say they “don’t do pain”, when 57% say they always use a safe word (see table four, below).

Table 4 – Attitude to pain and use of safewords
Pain I always use a safeword I mostly DON’T use a safeword I mostly use a safeword I never use a safeword
Essential to me 27% 19% 10% 43%
I dislike this 33% 18% 6% 42%
I don’t do this 57% 14% 29% 0%
Important to me 22% 17% 13% 48%
Not important/unimportant 26% 19% 9% 46%
All 25% 18% 12% 45%

Things get even clearer if you combine the responses to “I always use a safe word” and “I mostly use a safe word” together and also pair “I never use a safeword” with “I mostly DON’T use a safe word”. This then shows that, when it comes to inflicting or receiving pain, roughly one in three are inclined to use safewords and roughly two thirds are inclined not to. (table 5). The group that said they don’t do pain (admittedly only 1.4% of the sample – just seven people) are quite different: 86% use safe words.

Table 5 – Attitude to pain and use of safewords – Use and don’t combined
Pain Always/mostly use a safeword Never/mostly don’t usa a safeword
Essential to me 38% 62%
I dislike this 39% 61%
I don’t do this 86% 14%
Important to me 36% 64%
Not important/unimportant 35% 65%
All 37% 63%

I also looked at how the picture changes if you split respondents by their BDSM orientations (Bottom/submissive, Top/dominant and Switch) – see charts four and five below. Interestingly the B/s people (72%) and T/d people (82%)  who responded  are more likely to consider pain important or essential than switches (67%). Amongst those who think pain is important the largest groups by far never use safewords or mostly don’t use them. Amongst those who dislike or won’t do pain (a small proportion of the total sample) slightly more say they always use a safeword than those who say they never do.

SfC5

SwC4

Related articles

BDSM Safe word Survey – who uses them with their principal partners

standing stoneThis is the first article about the safeword survey I recently conducted. More information about the terms and ideas I use in these surveys can be found here. Information about the demographics of this survey is here.

The survey asked the question “Thinking of BDSM interactions with your principal relationship partner(s) and of safewords…” and then asked how likely the respondent was to use a safeword. 500 of the 533 people in the sample answered the question.

Chart 1 - who uses safewords with their partners (by gender)

Chart one (above ) shows the responses to the question and Table one (below) shows the same data as percentages.

Table 1 Thinking of BDSM interactions with your principal relationship partner(s) and safewords…
Any other preference Female Male Grand Total
I always use a safeword 38% 24% 27% 25%
I mostly DON’T use a safeword 25% 18% 17% 18%
I mostly use a safeword 13% 10% 15% 12%
I never use a safeword 25% 48% 42% 45%
Grand Total 100% 100% 100% 100%

So, across the entire sample, all respondents were far more likely NOT to use safewords with their principal partners than to use safewords (the responses on play partners are quite different, as we shall see in forthcoming blogs). sixty-three percent either never use a safeword with their partner (45%) or “mostly DON’t use a safeword” (18%). Only one in four (25%) always used a safeword. This reflects the results of the survey I did here in August 2012, where 61% of the 309 people who took part said they mostly don’t use safewords.

Gender

Women appear slightly less likely to use a safeword than men. 66% of women either did not use a safeword at all or mostly did not. 59% of men answered in these ways.

BDSM Orientation

Things are different when you analyse the sample by orientation (Sadist?masochist – S/m, Dominant/submissive – D/s, and Master/slave – M/s).

Chart 2 - Who uses safewords by BDSM component

Chart 2 (above) and table 2 (below) show the raw numbers and percentages of each group that answered this question in each way.

Table 2 Thinking of BDSM interactions with your principal relationship partner(s) and safewords…
Dominant/ Submissive Master/Slave Sadist/ Masochist All
I always use a safeword 27% 6% 38% 25%
I mostly DON’T use a safeword 18% 8% 27% 18%
I mostly use a safeword 14% 2% 13% 12%
I never use a safeword 41% 84% 22% 45%
Grand Total 100% 100% 100% 100%

S/m respondents were far more likely to use a safeword (38% always did – well ahead of the sample as a whole – 25%). M/s people said they were least likely to use a safeword: Only 6% said they used one all the time and 84% said they never used them. Only 22% of S/m people said they never used a safeword.

D/s respondents (who are most of the participants) lay between these extremes and close to the averages for the sample as a whole.

BDSM Orientation

There always seems to be a bias in these surveys towards submissives, especially females. Perhaps they are just more into surveys!

Chart 3 - who uses safewords - by orientation

Chart Three (above) shows how tops/bottoms and switches use safewords and table 3 (below) gives the same data in percentages. Again, it’s clear that, across all respondents, most either don’t use a safeword at all – or not the majority of the time.

42% of Tops/dominants use safewords all or some of the time compared with 30% of bottoms/submissives. This contrasts with switches where a majority (52%) mostly use safewords.

Switches were also the group most likely to use safewords with their partners all the time – 38% said they did (20% for bottoms and 29% for tops).

Table 3 Who uses safewords by BDSM orientation
Bottom/ Submissive Switch Top/Dominant All
I always use a safeword 20% 38% 29% 25%
I mostly DON’T use a safeword 18% 26% 12% 18%
I mostly use a safeword 10% 13% 13% 12%
I never use a safeword 52% 23% 46% 45%
Grand Total 100% 100% 100% 100%
Related articles

Safewords – new, more detailed poll – Please take part

BelasariusBack in October I designed a poll on safewords and more than eighty people then on Informed Consent did a pilot version. I’ve taken their comments into account and have now published it on survey monkey, here.

The survey takes less than five minutes, is anonymous, and you get to see the results as soon as you finish the last question.

I am incredibly grateful to all who took part in the pilot and to all who take part now.

When I have a couple of hundred responses, I will publish the results on this blog and link to them from fetbook and fetlife.

The results of my earlier, one question poll on safewords are on this blog, here. I suggest you only look at that AFTER you’ve completed the survey above (If you want to of course).

And, if you want to take part in my continuing polls on BDSM definitions, you can do so here.

Once again, thanks to all who take part.

The tightrope walked by the Dom.

The feet of a tightrope walker.
Photo credit: Wikipedia

This is from my  Informed Consent blog, earlier this year:

We had an interesting exchange this morning. A propos something written in our book (which is not rule book, exactly) and fascinating chat at yesterday’s O&P.

Anyway – the deal for us is that what he does is, he says, not for my hurt or shame.

Hurt as in emotional hurt? Yes.

Oh, so pain and embarrassment is OK then?

“Oh, absolutely”, he said. And, after a pause: “You have no idea of the tightrope we Doms have to walk”.

It was a light-hearted conversation, but it has a point.

He likes to hurt me. he likes to see me blush with embarrassment. But, he likes me to look back and glow because he’s made me proud of what I’ve done for him. He says he hates it if I feels, looking back, degraded or shamed by his actions.

Someone else made the point that “it’s because I can trust him [her dom] not to (intentionally) hurt me that I felt able to give up my limits. I know he will push me way outside of my comfort zone, but never so far that will cause me harm. I don’t envy him (or Belasarius) that responsibility”.

Who uses safewords? Results

standing stoneThree day’s ago I put up a one question PollDaddy  poll on safewords. I closed the poll at 9:15 am on Thursday 9 August 2012.

These are the results. 320 people responded, of whom  11 said they weren’t BDSM people, so they didn’t answer the question. Of the rest, there were 161 submissives, 105 dominants and 43 switches. As with the other surveys I’ve done there always seems to be more interest among submissives, and dominants seem to take more of an interest as the completion deadline looms.

The results, surprisingly (at least to me) show that a clear majority of those that responded do not use safewords, especially if they are in relationships.

The question asked was: “Please tick the answer that most resembles you and your attitude to safewords”

The chart below shows the answers given by all respondents. Most came from the UK, where I promoted the survey on Informed Consent and Fetlife Up to a fifth may have come from other countries, mostly the USA, with maybe a quarter of the non UK responders coming from other European countries.

Dominants

Two-thirds of dominants said they were more likely not to use a safeword.

Dominants Actual %
Mostly use safeword 36 34%
Mostly don’t use safeword 69 66%
Total 105

Submissives

Submissive respondents agreed with dominants, in the same proportions.

Submissives Actual %
Mostly use safeword 54 34%
Mostly don’t use safeword 107 66%
Total 161

Switches

Three out of four switches said they were more likely to use a safeword than not.

Switches Actual %
Mostly use safeword 32 74%
Mostly don’t use safeword 11 26%
 Total 43  

People in relationships

People in relationships said they were the least likely to use a safeword of any group (only a quarter said they did).

In relationships Actual %
Mostly use safeword 46 24%
Mostly don’t use safeword 147 76%
Total 193  

People interested in scenes and play

Two thirds said they used safewords

Play and scenes Actual %
Mostly use safeword 76 66%
Mostly don’t use safeword 40 34%
Total 116
Related articles

 

Safewords: BDSM safety essential or sacred cow?

standing stoneSafewords give confidence to people who are new to topping and bottoming and help experienced people who are new to each other understand each other better. They are a sensible approach to safety and have been seen as essential certainly for as long as I can remember.

I am not  going to use the argument that safewords can’t protect anyone from abuse by a determined abuser. The same is, sadly, likely to be  true of any system designed to preserve consensuality and safety. Abuse of safewords does take place and needs to  be exposed. No, my view is that, for some, there are alternatives to safewords that may be as effective, but more rewarding..

Safewords  halt scenes that are going wrong, but are they a bit of a sacred cow? Are there other ways of ensuring safety and making submission feel as real as possible?  Could other ways sometimes be better? I think so.

English: A woman flogging a submissive man on ...
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Safety and consensuality

I understand that something like a safeword is essential to preserve consensuality in a scene and I have absolutely no doubt that there needs to be communication between top and bottom, dom and sub to ensure safety, but I think “take care”, “stop” and “no” are better than a dedicated safeword.

For me, safewords undermine dominance and submission and they turn play into play acting. They can also become an excuse for abuse.

The sub in control?

In many circumstances, it’s my belief that safewords diminish the experience for all.

Why? Well:

There she is, moaning, groaning and pleading and all of a sudden she says “Amber”. Instantly, you know all that moaning, groaning and pleading was false. Just acting (ok – with feeling, but you suddenly know what you were doing was not having the effect you thought)

She “Ambers” again; things get better and maybe you get a “Green” of pleasure… You screw up and she utters a sudden, shouted “RED”. And you realise it isn’t just the moaning that was false. There’s no submission either. She is in control of the scene. She decides what she receives.

Of course, it’s a little less true if you use a single safeword that always brings things straight to a halt. That way all that is controlled is the end of the scene. That seems sensible to me (but see below), rather than providing the submissive with a tool that can be used to take control, which is what the RAG system, I feel, does. but, if that is your choice, why use a special, secret word, and not just allow people to communicate their needs. It seems to me that people want the freedom to say “please stop” when it’s not what they mean.

Now, from the dominant‘s perspective:

There she is strapped down securely. Cheeks and shoulders beginning to glow as you get into the rhythm a good flogging requires (and which for me, produces it’s own zen-like satisfaction). I know she has a safeword. Therefore, I can do what the hell I like, because she has the responsibility of choosing when to stop. And, she can’t blame me for getting it wrong – because she had her safeword to use!

And for the submissive?

“Well, if I safeword, I’ve failed him, haven’t I. Oh I mustn’t safeword – he won’t be proud of me at all. I must be the best I can be.”

Or,

“I can’t space, it might not be safe, I won’t know what’s happening: I might need to safeword.

Another way to safety?

Erotic illustration
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So for me, ensuring safety in a scene comes down to these things:

Real communication, using real language – Then the moans and the pleading are real and satisfying. And, “STOP” means stop.

The dominant should not have power without responsibility – which is what a safeword can give. Instead, he should observe his submissive and communicate with her. Watch her, check she’s ok, check her ability to communicate, her breathing, her mental state – whether she’s drifted away into subspace.

The result, the submissive enters the scene knowing she has given herself to her dominant within the limits they have agreed and her only responsibility is to be the best she can be. The dominant knows he is free to use her – and that the responsibility for making it a satisfactory time for both is his. She is the instrument, he is the musician.

Fuller results from the poll below can be found in an article lined tto under “related links” at the bottom of this post.

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Umbrella Hard Limit

 

Umbrella

Anything for your pleasure: Nothing for my hurt or shame alone,

Knowing I am your treasure: Don’t maim my body, heart or mind,

Use before unconsenting others I will not condone,

Make me yours for your sake, but never be unkind.

 

We have a book, with a number of rules and rituals, most set a few years back. But this is what we use to test the ways I use her.

 

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