MidnightWriter
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Joined: 2/8/2005
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quote:
ORIGINAL: nella
What is SSC?
A nifty phrase with a high positive index and very little real meaning. Which is just a fancy way of saying that it sounds great, but that it really doesn't mean much of anything. Three little words, used so often, with so little thought. Let's analyze the phrase, word by word, shall we?
Safe - we all know what safe means. Nobody's ever actually seen "safe" outside of a baseball umpire's call, but we all know what it means - or, at least, what's not safe. Autoerotic asyphixiation is unsafe, enemas that contain a quart of bourbon are unsafe, and unprotected intercourse with someone who is carrying the HIV virus is unsafe. Flogging is reasonably safe, sort of - but I've seen people flog kidneys and bellies because they didn't know any better, I've seen skilled people miss the mark (as I do myself every now and again), and I've even seen a heavy flogger go flying because a grip slipped - a simple accident. So, maybe flogging isn't as safe as it seems.
Paddling and spanking - those should be safe. Unless someone gets a bit heavy-handed and strikes too close to the tailbone, cracking it - and while I haven't seen that happen, I have talked with someone who was recovering from just such an injury. She'd received the injury at the hands of her long-term partner, who was generally highly regarded - he wasn't a clueless top. Stuff happens.
Bondage - that should be safe, right? Mostly, it doesn't hurt anyone - but I was DM at a dungeon about a year ago when a big, strong guy was bound with his wrists above him - not even close to suspension, just a vertical spreadeagle. A damn good domme - his wife - was flogging him. Nothing for anyone to get excited about, until his knee popped loose - no damage, just would have been a stumble if he'd been walking. Unfortunately, it dislocated his shoulder. Nobody's fault, nothing "dangerous" was being done - but it necessitated a trip to the ER and a long, painful healing period. Feces occurs, and sometimes it happens to people who know what they're doing.
Well, okay - let's let actual BDSM activities out of it - those people are nuts anyway. Standing on the sidewalk outside of a dungeon should be safe - but it's not. People die in the U.S. every year from just standing on the sidewalk. Car accidents account for most of these fatalities, and I imagine a few are killed in gang warfare (targets or not). Things fall from buildings.
Staying home in bed should be safe - but again, there are accidents every year that cause injury or death to someone home in their bed - and not all of them are from acrobatic sex.
There is no certain safety this side of the grave - not anywhere, not for anyone. For anyone to claim that anything is absolutely safe is absurd. But absolute safety is not what's generally talked about - it's relative safety that they mean when they say "he's unsafe with that singletail" or "I felt so safe in that japanese bondage harness". Thus, the question becomes, how much relative safety do you need to judge something as "safe enough"?
Everyone answers that question for themselves, and where they draw the line varies widely - what's safe enough for me may not be safe enough for you, and what's safe enough for Mortimer may give me the willies. So, unless you know exactly who you're talking about, and where they draw their "safe enough" line, the word "safe", as regards BDSM activity, really doesn't mean anything - and if you do know where a particular line is drawn, the word only applies to them - it can't apply to everyone.
So, "safe" is a very pretty-sounding word - but all by itself, it either can't exist or has no clear definition - so it really doesn't mean anything.
Sane - now, there's a word that feels right. Unfortunately, the psychiatric profession doesn't use the word any more, because it's a useless measurement. Almost everyone has a deviation from what used to be considered "sane" - a neurosis, a fetish, a phillia (unreasoned fear of ____), an aversion or fascination with something that makes them atypical. "Sanity", per se, doesn't exist.
There's another perfectly good-sounding word that doesn't really mean anything. This leaves us with consensual.
I won't go on at length about the grey areas, such as consensual non-consent, retroactive consent, uninformed consent - that'd be another long article all by itself. Let's stick with the obvious and clear - simple consent. Someone gets clear, unambiguous agreement that _____ seems like a good idea, so let's do it. It may end in disaster, it may end up in something so glorious that it seems the whole countryside should have a cigarette afterward - but it's clear that every participant was there because they'd decided to be there.
Consent can be debatable, but it can also be clear and unambiguous - so that's the only word in that phrase that can possibly mean a damn thing. Consent is the one guideline that TIES acknowledges - and it seems to work okay for everyone.
Safe, Sane, Consensual - it's two-thirds meaningless noise, but it sure does sound pretty to the newbies and the 'nillas. 
_____________________________
Power corrupts. Absolute power ... is really pretty nifty.
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