Safe words

The cornerstone of the lifestyle is communication. Without communication you and your partner(s) will not be able to achieve what you want from the lifestyle and will be left frustrated and angry.

Safe words were created to keep play safe and to keep people comfortable, both tops and bottoms can use a safe word. The most common ones are the traffic light colors; red, green and yellow. When you negotiate a scene, you need to go over your safe words and what they mean. When you first start evening with someone, they may check in with you frequently and as you get more comfortable scening with them they will be able to read your body language and not check with you as often.

Green - Generally means, things are ok, you are doing something good, I'm ok to keep going, that feels good.

Yellow - it could mean, this hurts change to something else, I don't like that particular toy, you keep hitting the same spot and it is getting too sensitive, this is getting too intense and I need you to slow down before you build back up, I need a breather. It helps if you can add something to explain what is yellow, for example if you have rope around your wrist and it has started to tighten up too much, you can say "Yellow, rope" and then your top can loosen up the rope and get back to the scene.

Red - Red means stop. Don't play with me anymore. You need to let me down and depending on what made you yell red, it could mean, leave me alone, don't touch me or something else. Let your top know what made it red if you can, if you can't at least try to let them know when you've had a chance to come down and relax.

Mayday - This means trouble, if you are in a dungeon and yell mayday you will have the dungeon masters all over you in no time and they will help you out. This could happen for example if you are being suspended and the rope is letting go, you need to get to the ground as soon as possible and are scared you might fall. It could also mean that one of your limits has been crossed and you need the person you are scening with to go away now.

Green and yellow are the most frequently used colors, it is not a bad thing to use your colors, it is a communication tool and helps both parties get to where they want to go comfortably. Usually, both parties want to achieve good head space and even sub or Dom space, although that does not always happen and you should not feel bad if you did not get there.