This article looks at how strongly 499 safeword survey participants agreed or disagreed with the statement “I feel a safeword makes my play more artificial”.
The first chart, shows the extent to which all respondents (split by gender) agreed or disagreed with the statement “I feel a safeword makes my play more artificial” (the method I have used for calculating the charts is under the subheading “Data used in this article” below).
Respondents of both genders were more likely to agree than disagree with this statement. Men were slightly less likely to agree than women, but both sexes agreed, by a substantial margin, that safewords made play more artificial.
When the data was split by BDSM orientation (above) a clear difference did emerge. Switches were roughly three times more likely to disagree that safewords make play more artificial whilst both tops/dominants and bottoms/submissives supported the statement strongly. Tops/dominants were more than four times more likely to agree that safewords make play artificial. Bottoms/submissives also agreed – but not as strongly. They were only twice as likely to agree that safewords make play artificial than to disagree.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, people from the Master (mistress) & slave BDSM component overwhelmingly agreed (roughly 12 times more likely to agree with the statement than to disagree with the statement – below). People from the largest group in the survey (Dominants/submissives were split and Sadists/masochists were a little more likely to disagree that safewords make play feel artificial than not.
Data used in this article
The article uses data from a question where people were asked whether they felt that a safeword made their play more artificial. 499 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) | I feel a safeword makes our play more artificial | |||||
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 | 36 | 44 | 48 | 38 | 23 | 189 |
Master/Slave | 9 | 33 | 2 | 4 | 7 | 55 | |
Sadist/Masochist | 9 | 3 | 9 | 6 | 4 | 31 | |
Bottom/Submissive Total | 54 | 80 | 59 | 48 | 34 | 275 | |
Switch | Dominant/Submissive | 2 | 2 | 13 | 17 | 13 | 47 |
Master/Slave | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 6 | |
Sadist/Masochist | 11 | 1 | 10 | 4 | 11 | 37 | |
Switch Total | 15 | 4 | 24 | 21 | 26 | 90 | |
Top/Dominant | Dominant/Submissive | 12 | 23 | 18 | 20 | 10 | 83 |
Master/Slave | 4 | 19 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 27 | |
Sadist/Masochist | 3 | 2 | 3 | 10 | 6 | 24 | |
Top/Dominant Total | 19 | 44 | 23 | 31 | 17 | 134 | |
Grand Total | 88 | 128 | 106 | 100 | 77 | 499 | |
What is your gender? | Male | I feel a safeword makes our play more artificial | |||||
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 | 14 | 7 | 7 | 3 | 10 | 41 |
Master/Slave | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 5 | |
Sadist/Masochist | 4 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 8 | |
Bottom/Submissive Total | 19 | 8 | 9 | 4 | 14 | 54 | |
Switch | Dominant/Submissive | 1 | 2 | 9 | 9 | 8 | 29 |
Master/Slave | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | |
Sadist/Masochist | 3 | 1 | 6 | 0 | 9 | 19 | |
Switch Total | 4 | 3 | 15 | 9 | 19 | 50 | |
Top/Dominant | Dominant/Submissive | 10 | 17 | 11 | 15 | 6 | 59 |
Master/Slave | 3 | 13 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 20 | |
Sadist/Masochist | 3 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 16 | |
Top/Dominant Total | 16 | 31 | 15 | 21 | 12 | 95 | |
Grand Total | 39 | 42 | 39 | 34 | 45 | 199 | |
What is your gender? | Female | I feel a safeword makes our play more artificial | |||||
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 | 22 | 37 | 39 | 34 | 13 | 145 |
Master/Slave | |||||||
Sadist/Masochist | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | |
Bottom/Submissive Total | 34 | 34 | 34 | 34 | 34 | 34 | |
Switch | Dominant/Submissive | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
Master/Slave | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
Sadist/Masochist | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | |
Switch Total | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 | |
Top/Dominant | Dominant/Submissive | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
Master/Slave | |||||||
Sadist/Masochist | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | |
Top/Dominant Total | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | |
Grand Total | 47 | 47 | 47 | 47 | 47 | 47 |
- Safewords Survey – Are safewords essential in BDSM punishment (belasarius.com)
- BDSM safeword survey – Are safewords essential in all BDSM transactions? (belasarius.com)
- Safeword Survey – who uses them with their principal partners (belasarius.com)
- BDSM People who like “pain” and safewords (belasarius.com)
- Safeword Survey – Are safewords essential in BDSM play. (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)
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