Noah
Posts: 1660
Joined: 7/5/2005
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Okay. After a bit of R&R ...
quote:
ORIGINAL: Mercnbeth quote:
Original Noah
A different way of stating this theme is: "If hearing yellow, green, plaid, or chartreuse, changes what you are doing, or if you'd stop hearing a safe-word from your submissive, in those instance at least the submissive maintains the control." which of course is elliptical for "... and so this isn't twue submission."
Why is the dom in control when he changes course in response to her widening her eyes that certain way he knows so well, or if she says "Stop. It hurts too much," but yet the dom is yielding control to the sub if he changes course in response to her saying: "Pineapple, Sir"?
He isn't if it is at the vocal or gestured direction of the submissive.
And this response begs that entire question in a single word (bearing in mind that more than one question is being explored here.)
Sure, if he is "at the ... direction of the submissive" in a common and familiar sense of that expression then he is not in charge. Those are just two ways of saying the same thing. If I argue that IF it is a minute after 11:59 AM THEN it is noon, who’s gonna argue with me?
But that is the larger point in question, isn't it? Is he or isn't he suddenly in her thrall if he responds to a safeword. Or even more extreme, is he in her thrall the whole time a safeword stands as an agreed-to option? So far this response in terms of being at the direction of the submissive amounts to no answer but just a sort of pushing back of the question.
Now if the answer is that yes he is at her control, that he isn’t “really” domming her, why is it any different if someone stopped when their partner said: “I feel just like I do right before a grand mal seizure”? Or recited four of the seven major symptoms of cardiac arrest and said she had them all in very high intensity?
quote:
Original Mercmbeth
You must appreciate and have shared the experience I've had where the submissive is straining in the restraints to be touched in a certain place to send them over the edge. Do you always do it? Sometimes? Never? The point is it's your decision.
Okay
quote:
Original Mercmbeth
If you are saying that when whatever is used as the 'stop!' signal given by the sub can be ignored by the Dom then by definition safe-words serve no purpose.
For one thing you once again you ignore the wide range of pro-active and pre-emptive applications of safe words. This is what I meant when I said that framing a discussion of safe words on the premiss that they are absolutely never used except after the fact would be destructive to the conversation.
You won't easily convince me that you have never heard of dominants consensually pushing limits set by their submissive partners. It is plainly the case that a couple can have safe-words as well as an understanding that if a given case warrants it in the dom's eyes then the safe-word can be over-ruled, which if not to say ignored.
Other sorts of counter-examples to your hypothesis are just as easy to find. Based on intimate knowledge and deep trust a top who has long relied upon safewords with his partner may intuit that a unique opportunity exists to give her something precious by taking the very large risk of over ruling her safeword call. Maybe this is a one in a lifetime thing and it works and the sub is eternally grateful for an opportunity she never could have appreciated nor would have agreed to had he not imposed it on her. It is left to them to decide whether this constitutes a fatal breach of trust, a forgiveable breach of trust, or a quite surprising fulfilment of the trust which has grown between them through the years.
In a sort of short hand we could rephrase this by pointing out that safe words could be agreed upon to work in terms of what we might call soft limits OR hard limits--and of course the notion of limits isn’t captured by this binary sort of description. The way a couple relates to the notion of limits can be more nuanced and complex or even more simple than in my little example.
Look at that ridiculous tale about the girl jumping off the roof. Did you read that thread? No matter. Rearrange the furniture a little and you can have a case like this which to me nicely illustrates the potential value of violable safewords:
The sub is safe-wording to stop being carried toward the lake which she is pathologically afraid of. The dom over-rules her safeword call because he knows as she doesn't that the approaching swarm of killer (well, okay, allergenic-to-her) bees will get her and send her into shock if he doesn't over rule her safeword call. He believes that even if it comes to years of PTSD counselling after a dunk in the lake, this is preferable for her to death by stinging. He takes one risk rather than another and acts accordingly. He does this without pausing to remove her ear plugs and gag to negotiate it all. Does this prove that the potential to violate a safe-word necessitates the conclusion that safewords can have no good purpose? No.
These various examples are to show that it isn't necessarily the case that if: "whatever is used as the 'stop!' signal given by the sub can be ignored by the Dom then by definition safe-words serve no purpose."
There is no need to see this aspect of the world in such exclusive, black and white terms--no more so than any other. A given thing can be put to different purposes at different times. I pound nails in and pull them out with the same hammer. I also use the head to pound thing apart and the claw as a hook to grapple unwieldy materials in demolition and the handle as a mallet when formed coil stock pieces need to be urged into their final position.
So by revising the language from "ignored" to over ruled we can see that there are important aspects to the issue which the formulation of the question with "ignored" didn't happen to bring out.
quote:
Original Mercnbeth
If play stops at the subs say so, TO ME, the point of control is obvious. I'm not saying that opinion is right or wrong, I'm saying it's how I view the situation. That includes consideration of a "terrible accident" happening and bone is sticking through the skin. I'm absolutely confident and certain that before the scream left beth's throat the process of stopping would be in the final stages. Yes, with me, with us, I represent I am that in tune.
Frankly I don't doubt that you are that in tune. I also don't doubt that the world presents us every once in a while with utterly unprecedented situations and Shit Happens. I believe that you guys know that too and could live with the bone-through-skin if it resulted. But I honestly don't want to make this about you or me. I'm interested in the ideas.
quote:
Original Mercnbeth
Noah, know that on this subject, I NEVER play, beyond a remedial 'play spanking' or requested assistance with anyone unless I have confidence that the level of play is equal to my level of knowledge of the other individual.
Well fer chrissakes how do you tell before any symptoms have materialized that she has had for the past three months a disease which has progressively been weakening her bones which will now break 27% sooner than the last time you put her into a particularly demanding bondage position? The very fact that you are so intimately acquainted with the geography of her physical limits as they stood for the past several years would act to MASK your ability to recognize current dangers in a case like this. A new play partner wouldn’t have “I’ve done this to her eleven times before with no ill effects” factored in against the rather alarming way that vein is pulsing in her neck. I mean I don't get it when guys say "I am on top of all eventualities." You aren’t, buddy. That’s the human condition. The world presents contingencies beyond your or my or anyone else’s ken or ability to control.
Is the above paragraph an argument for safewords? Well it could be for a lot of people and that’s fine if that’s the meaning they find in those facts of life. Just the the meaning some people find in the slim possibility of parachute failure is: “Don’t ever voluntarily jump out of a perfectly good airplane. For people like it is possible to cognize the radical degree to which events--out at the edges of the actuarial bell curves, are out of our control and to proceed relying upon something other than safewords, whether that is relying on dumb luck (I don’t recommend it) or some other constellation of factors. The one thing which to me might be even more dangerous than relying on dumb luck would be to rely on some notion like: “I am on top of it; I a so in tune with my partner that by the careful exertion of my will and attention I can keep all the demons and bad possibilities away. Because that is just flat wrong.
Existential Contingency doms us all. A more familiar way of saying something very similar is: Nature Bats Last. Or the more concise formulation: Shit Happens.
Please know that I don’t intend these comments to reflect upon you or your relationship but rather to the facts and principles of life which underlie all relationships, which underlie human existence.
quote:
ORIGINAL: Mercnbeth quote:
Original Noah
Well in the broadest sense of the word, sure, this might sum it up. But if you mean that to be short for “protection of the sub against damage by the dom, period” then I think you’re out of touch. No-not at all and I responded previously. But again, I see it as a problem. Some see it not only as protection but as a border or guideline. The person that mentored me long ago pointed this out. When playing with a safe-word with someone you don't really know, a Dom's nature is to make an "impression". Some Dom's can see the safe-word not as a warning but as a goal. Ego may want you to hear at least the "yellow" version. Meanwhile, on the other side of the flogger, the submissive is also trying to make an impression and goes beyond normal tolerance and doesn't safe-word. Do you see the problem this can cause? "Protection" of a safe-word can become more of a license to exceed. NOTE "can".
“When playing with a safe-word with someone you don't really know, a Dom's nature is to make an "impression".
“... a Dom”? Well which dom do you mean? All doms? For this one over here, maybe yes. For that one the exact opposite would be the case,with many other sorst of cases between and beyond. Some doms when in their “topspace”--take my word for it if you can--are really not so focused on what other’s think of him, including the partner. There really are other ways to enter into dominance and sadism than this way that your advisor took into account. Some Doms, while valuing “making an impression” value other, potentially contrary issues much more highly. For instance some value their anonymity highly enough that whatever their other ‘natural urges’ *if you want to use that kind of language (e.g. your “a Doms’s nature”) they will let their urge not to be outed in some hospital emergency room run roughshod on their urge to crank the evil gizmo one turn tighter. Then again, some Doms are in a sense really pussycats in terms of S&M, happy to dabble there for spice or to reward the submission of their D/s partner in this way whereas they have no great calling to sadism themselves. For a guy (or girl) like this there might be no ego at all tied up in their pain play, for instance. No particular desire whatever to make the sort of impression your advisor referred to.
In short, SOME people CAN make this mistake your advisor referred to. Some people can make that mistake with ANY tool. We both seem to agree than any tool can be misused. I firmly believe that seat belts can kill me but I wear them every time I drive with very few exceptions. I do this because in the first place they free my hands to steer in the event that some sudden outbreak of physics tries to toss me about the cabin. In the second place, for every eventuality in which they can kill me I believe there are lots (is that better than zillions?) of more likely eventualities in which they can help preserve my health.
Do I drive like a freaking maniac because I think the seat belt is a magic shield? No. And neither does anyone else I know--though if you say you know of some people like this out of billions of people in the world I won’t refuse to believe you. Similarly no one else I have ever heard from on this issue personally holds that safewords replace trust, replace clear communication (since they ARE communication that one is particularly puzzling to me) or stand as a panacea to all BDSM safety issues.
quote:
Original Mercmbeth quote:
Original Noah
To make statements like "safe-words ARE counter protection,” however, doesn't advance that conversation, in my view. It hinders that conversation first by its needlessly polarizing approach and secondly by often being flat wrong Compromising by changing "are" to "can" and considering the example I'll stand behind the counter protection argument.
We can shake hands on that one I think.
quote:
Original Mercmbeth quote:
Original Noah
he wasn't attacking safe-word usage? Come on guys. If he wasn’t then why did he return to apologize for it? Address it to him.
There is no need to address it to him. He apologized for scoffing. Forgive me if I recall incorrectly (I'm not stopping to check) but didn't you take the time to defend his McBondage comment as innocuous or possibly complimentary? I can certainly forgive you for not reading his follow-up where he retracted the insulting comment but I'm taking it up with you here because whereas he apologized for the comment, my recollection is that you defended it. Irrespective of your innocent (I believe you on your intent) first impression of his meaning, having read his retraction do you still want to hold that no one before brought the subject of derogating another's kink into this thread? That is what you accused me of and you haven't retracted that accusation, I don't think.
quote:
ORIGINAL: Mercnbeth quote:
Original Noah
]If you want to say that in fact safe words haven't worked out for you, that's cool. Noah, frankly they've always scared me. I'll compare it to my golf game. I'll wager a few dollars on the course, but if someone requires me to risk $500 on a match even though I can afford it, and think I can beat him, I hand him the $500 and tell him not to bother effecting my "game". I don't want the distraction from MY head-space playing golf or playing with a submissive. Part of my head-space is knowing my partner. I'd be afraid to play with someone who I didn't know well enough to need someone other than myself responsible for them.
But I look warily at safewords too. And since I seem to be repeatedly called on defending “my” safewords I’ll point out again that I avoid them personally.
Regarding the bolded (by me) text above, do you really maintain that no one other than yourself bears any responsibility for your partner while she is in your hands? That she bears no responsibility whatsoever for her own well-being, safe-keeping, fulfilment, etc?
I mean holy shit.
If avoiding safewords could actually absolve your partner of all of her responsibilities to herself and you and magically put everything at your command, well that would be one thing. But do you really think it does? What about her responsibility to communicate? What aboutn her responsibility to obey? What about if you have an unpredictable massive stroke or seizure during a scene? She has no responsibilities when you are engaged with her? That just sounds preposterous.
And now I’m going to allow myself to make a critical personal comment, since you have been so willing to advance this conversation in terms of your personal experiences and proclivities. Hopefully it can be taken as constructive criticism.
Having $500 at risk is enough to discomfit you enough to impair your ability play golf, by your account. By my calculus and I presume by yours as well, a human BDSM partner is both (A) worth more than $500 dollars and is (B) at risk during heavy BDSM play at your hands. Until the time when you can maintain your equilibrium and self-control when you risk $500 while hitting a ball with a stick, please reconsider the advisability of risking something infinitely more valuable by hitting a woman with a whip.
I don’t deserve or expect a response, for that decision is between you and your partners. Still my comment is not merely rhetorical. I think the idea presented is worth your consideration.
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Original Mercnbeth
It's very difficult to convey my mental state during play. I always need to take a trunk to any play party, because I never know how the scene will progress or what implement strikes my fancy. I "go with the flow". I don't see the same flow possible interjecting attention to a safe-word.
Come on, Merc. You paint the picture (and by the way, I buy it; I believe you) of a top who is ever so tuned in to all sorts of external physiological variations; tuned in to non-verbal and non-vocal cues of every sort. In addition you allow and encourage overt, uncoded verbal communication and attend carefully to that. You obviously shoulder all of these attention burdens willingly. I suspect you do so with with gusto. Okay, that’s all good. Does all that stretch your overall attention capacity so close to its edge that the one thing you don’t have the attention capacity for is is noticing when someone yells: “PINEAPPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” at the top of her voice? You’re just terrified you might miss that and so something would go horribly wrong?
Huh?
quote:
Original Mercmbeth quote:
Original Noah
I can't relate to the dom who manages interactions in terms of fulfilling the submissive’s every need and desire. I guess some do operate that way and that's fine with me. But that aside, honestly this example of yours would strike me as improbably rare and more important not to the point at hand. What is problematic with it isn’t the presence of absence of a safe word but the lunkheadedness of this hypothetical new dominant.
Noah, I guess I've seen many more new Doms who are lunkheads. It's not as unique as you believe in the public dungeons of NYC, and in LA, I'd say it's pervasive at one club in particular. These are times when BDSM is a fashion fad, among a crowd not just young in age. Am I really getting so old that I'm concerned about 'naive' youth? As someone pointed out, we are speaking to the masses. One in the "mass" gets the idea that a safe-word is a ticket to ride and the first experience is a bad one.
Okay Merc. Here I want to explicitly defer to your broader range of experience with new doms and I’ll thank you for sharing with me knowledge you gained through it. And I hope no one infers any scrap of sarcasm in that perfectly sincere sentence.
In view of the situation you describe I think it is well to spread the gospel that safewords are not magic cloaks or something. At the same time I see --who was it? Morrigel’s? seat belt example in this thread as obtaining in a telling way. It seems ever so possible and worthwhile to make it known unequivocally that neither seat belts nor safewords are perfect prevention for all attendant dangers. An even more strong point of agreement between you and I is the value of pointing out that in certain sorts of cases either seat belts or safewords can have counter-productive effects.
Some of us may differ on the point of evaluation which logically follows these observations. Unlike one poster here who says she fled from a top rather accede to his insistence that she simply keep a safe word in mind during play I feel that given the full range of possibilities, the risks of safe-word use can be more than outweighed by their benefits in very many kinds of cases.
quote:
original Mercnbethquote:
Original Noah
Why don't you ask Lashra, or Gypsygirl, or Celeste43 or any of the other posters to this thread who kindly gave example after example of this exact thing, to which you have turned a blind and seemingly rather disingenuous eye My apologies to all of them, but would a blindfold added to any of the conditions mentioned provide the pre-emptive ability to safe-word out? Or would the blindfold be reason enough to safe-word. Here again, is where I get on the personal 'slippery slope' of the submissive being in charge.
An apology is one thing.You might thank them for providing you with empirical (thank you for quietly correcting my spelling error) evidence to clear up your mis-conception that safewords are only used retrospectively.
As for the blindfold, I don’t see how it’s presence or absence adds anything telling to our analysis. If she can’t see the 9mm being racked, due to the blindfold, but she can hear the action at work and feel the cold steel on her lips it all seems to work out just the same. Sure it is easy to construct (and perform, if you like) examples of “sneak attack” procedures which erase the opportunity for pre-emptive safeword usage. How does that fact bear on the positive or negative value of safewords in all other sorts of cases?
When you get in your car at the curb side it is possible that while you settle in and reach for your seat belt a careening cab will strike you quite unawares. Does this represent a slippery slope of seat belt safety issues? No. Does it represent one limit to the range of their applicability to safety concerns. Very much so. I can’t imagine why the possibility of sneak attacks should (metaphorically, now) inhibit us from preparing for less surprising eventualities.
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Original Mercnbethquote:
Original Noah
And when he says that safe-wording is McBondage it is precisely what I am talking about when I bring in the Weal and Twue language. Noah, it is impossible to convey that I honestly interpreted this reference to a short cut to having a physical encounter. I did not see it as anything else. I wasn't doing a value judgement on the quality of food provided at McDonald's versus any other eatery. Sorry, I didn't. I saw it as a reference to speed, not a referral of real/true until it was pointed out later. I didn't even mean anything derogatory in the term 'meal alternative' I used. Working, I eat a lot of meal alternatives on the run. It was a neutral qualitative reference. My answer reflected the short-cut speed, in lieu of time and trust.
Please consider it adequately conveyed.
As stated above I believe that this was your first impression. I’m prepared to believe as well that you failed to read or appreciate the import of his retraction of that particular derogation. We’re all human. And like you I am less adamantly opposed to fast food than, say, justheather.
Still, in my personal circles and in my reading, calling something “Mc(Anything)” is just not very likely to be a compliment since that usage has been dedicated so frequently to decrying levels of care and quality.
quote:
Original Mercnbeth quote:
Original Noah
Meanwhile several other people have testified to their own use or observance of safe words used preemptorally (if that’s a word). You disregarded my testimony and inexplicably called my example exceptional and you ignored the testimony of all those other people in support of my argument that the premise doesn't obtain. No it was never ignored, it was argued from my perspective, 'augmented' if you will, with "what if's" and pointing out why I felt differently or was opposed. Isn't that what debate is all about? Overall, that's the part I understand the least about this thread, and why I posted that any personal attack is self perceived. I won't check, but feel free to do so. Nowhere in my argument did I use the words stupid, foolish, or even ridiculous. I did use dangerous and made an argument for why I thought it was appropriate.
I think some things are being conflated here. This entire thread was predicated upon a quote from you in which a quite bald factual claim was made. That was the claim that safewords are used only after the fact.
Now we may move on to discuss ramifications and slippery slopes and evaluations of all sorts of things once we accept this premiss that safewords are--as you are credited with saying--only used after the fact. Bur rather than accepting that premiss and entering the discussion on those terms my first comment was that acceptance of this premiss harms the conversation because the premiss simply doesn’t hold. That bald factual claim which underpins so much of one side of this discussion happens to be a false claim. In fact, as shown by my personal testimony and that of the above-cited posters, and others; as shown by the very structure and intent of the so-called “Yellow-Red” approach to safe words we can see beyond any shadow of doubt that in fact (no opinions required either way) safewords are sometimes used pro-actively or pre-emptively.
I have yet to see you forthrightly admit that this contention of yours, which was the basis for this thread, happens to have been clearly in error.
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Original Mercnbethquote:
Original Noah
Someone who sometimes speaks derisively but argues ingenuously and admits when his central premiss is wrong, or the well-mannered guy who defends his mistakes at all costs and when the last hope is gone fails to acknowledge that his “insight”--the one that inspired the whole damned discussion--was flat wrong from the start? My position remains that your central premiss is wrong. Now what? Or better yet, did that mean anything. What's the point? I don't have "hope" I have conviction based upon observation as I'm sure you do too. Wrong implies a defining source document. You have one? Is it you? I'm telling you it is NOT me.
It isn’t clear to me that you recognize my position since you speak in terms of me defending “my” safewords when in fact I avoid them. We can take as much time as you like in sorting out my premises. Them being as they may, however, has no bearing one way or the other on whether the premiss on which this thread is based is a true one of a false one.
As for wrong implying a source document, that can only be true in the case where the dispute is about paperwork. In all other cases where a source document is relied upon it is relied upon not for its inherent value but for the degree to which it reliably “documents” a state of affairs in the world around us. Each post by me and Celeste43 and others which unambiguously stated that we have seen safewords used in ways not after the fact is indeed a source document of that source. You may deem us all deluded and/or dishonest and reject out testimony and the electronic documents (like this present post) which present out testimony. But if your tack is just to disqualify all claims of generally reliable witnesses just in case they contravene your theory, well, I doubt that tack will lead you anywhere truth.
The question at issue at the front of all this for me--and other important questions follow in train--is whether your factual claim is true or false. Are safewords used only retroactively, or not? The fact, as well documented here, is that this claim is false. Admitting that would by no means obviate any true claims or reliable conclusions which happened to be made in its wake. That is to say that the fact that a premiss is false decides nothing about the truth or falsity of claims made later except insofar as to claims that truth can be established based upon this premiss. I can argue that the fact that George W. Bush is gay proves that his wife’s name is Barbara. The truth or falsity of the conclusion stands completely independent of the veracity of the premise or even of the logic (or lack thereof) used to move from the premiss to the conclusion.
He’s really straight (as I presume) but her name is indeed Barbara (as I presume.)
The trouble is that at various times this false premiss has been relied upon to further one side of the argument and furthering an argument based on a false premiss just doesn’t wash. I ask again. Are you willing to concede explicitly that people sometimes use safewords in ways that are not after the fact?
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Original Mercnbethquote:
Original Noah
In short. Safewords can effectively contribute to the safety of a scene. In short, inclusive of my reference to the use of safe-words as a 'short-cut'; safe-words can get you killed.
Yes. More generally, ANY attempt at increasing your safety, say, or any attempt at anything else whatsoever for that matter, can get you killed. Any one without exception. A thing which is true of every possible case seems to bring not so much weight to bear on any particular case, insofar as that. What is interesting is when a risk factor rises above this necessary existential background level of risk.
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Original Mercnbeth quote:
Original Noah
It doesn't compare? Well I can certainly see all sorts of ways in which it compares. But what does this have to do with your dual contentions that safewords are always used after the fact and that they are counter protection? You combined two unrelated statements. You'll have to explain how you connected them.
My point here was to ask you to explain how the one thing had anything to to with the other. I’ll take it from your response that you simply--for reasons unclear to me, included in your post something complete inapposite.
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Original Mercnbethquote:
Original Noah
I certainly don't have the data to support or refute that claim. I'm pretty sure you don't either. The cases where condom failure results in serious consequences are easy to note and well reported. The possibly millions of cases where condoms fail with no noticeable results whatsoever are by definition not noticed, not reported, not worked into any equation. Sure, you place your bets and takes your chances. I agree with you, both condoms and safe-words are no guarantee.
Hallelujah, we have convergence!
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quote:
You can hold whatever false and misinformed views you care to. I can point out the fact that they are false if I care to. We aren't talking about a difference of opinion here. It is a matter of fact, not opinion, whether people use safe words pre-emptively. In fact they do. In fact they have told you that they do. In fact you ignore the facts and cling to your false contention. What's up with that? I'll quote and pose this exactly back at 'ya.
What is your point in doing so?
There is a matter of fact--not opinion, at issue. The matter is whether people ever use safewords in ways which are not after the fact. I keep holding out the simple accurate account of how things stand in the world. I am not holding a misinformed view. It is true that people use safewords pre-emptively and in other ways.
What false factual claim is it that you are saying I am clinging to? If I am guilty of this I will be pleased to be called on for it and to revise my view to account for the objective truth of the matter.
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Original Mercnbeth quote:
Original Noah
You pose in this role of the defender of calm, reasoned discourse. Somehow though, when your central premise has been dismantled by solid empirical evidence from a wide range of sources you refuse to acknowledge the truth, or your error. With whom would you rather seek truth and understanding? Someone who sometimes speaks derisively but argues ingenuously and admits when his central premise is wrong, or the well-mannered guy who defends his mistakes at all costs and when the last hope is gone fails to acknowledge that his “insight”--the one that inspired the whole damned discussion--was flat wrong from the start?
Don't know, which one are you? This is still YOUR truth. Are you representing the "one true way"? I never indicated I was. "Empirical evidence"? You must now be joking? You have the "study" reference previously and you didn't share it?
It isn’t MY truth, Merc. It is simply a fact about the world that people use safewords in ways that are not after the fact. Your adamance in refusing to see what is put before you stands at odds to my general impression of you as a very bright, down-to-earth, experienced person. The truth at issue at this point has nothing to do with “True Ways”. It has to do with historical facts. On the second of November a certain submissive used a safeword in a way that wasn’t after the fact. That claim either represents a historical fact or it fails to. The point you refuse to admit is that on lots of particular dates, lots of particular submissives used lots of particular safewords in ways that were not after the fact. The truth or falsity of your premiss is not a matter of evaluation or dogma or belief. George Washington did or didn’t serve as US President. Submissives do or do not ever uses safe words pre-emptively. Please stop trying to color a factual dispute as though it hinged upon matters of opinion.
Once we recognize the truth or falsity of the premiss of this thread we are free to consider whatever may have been truly or falsely, said. And also to consider moe subjective but still important matters involving the practical value of various ways of seeing and saying things. But let's not get so lost in the clouds that we can’t tell the factual matters from the matters of opinion.
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Original Mercnbethquote:
original Noah
The fact that zillions of people use safe words and many keep using them year after year suggests to me that they often work fine. Your argument, viewed closely then, gives powerful reason to believe that safe words are for some a powerful and effective tool--even as they are in other cases at the center of failures, disappointments and sometimes grave harm Now you have "zillions". Glad you can take validation from my words regarding the "powerful" tool that they are.
Of course by zillions (a silly, made-up noise meant to sound like a big number) I meant to indicate some very considerable number which I am not in a position to specify. I’ll bet you knew that.
Look, Merc. One of your contentions is that “Safewords can get you killed.” Scroll up if you don’t recall saying this. You put derisive quotes around the term powerful but don’t you and I agree that anything that can literally fucking kill human beings is powerful?
If ever, even one time, some particular top was about to do (lunkheadedly or otherwise) something fatal to a sub and he stopped only because she safeworded then the fact is that safewords can save a life as well as take one. Given your testimony about how lunkheaded tops can be even under experienced, watchful eyes I think it is reasonable to conclude that somewhere on some day this sort of scenario did play out. If you’re still with me on these particular narrow points then we can agree that in certain cases safewords can kill you and in certain cases they can save your life. How much more powerful can a thing be than that?
For heaven’s sake what is worthy of scare-quotes in the claim that safewords are powerful?
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Original Mercnbethquote:
Original Noah
Look. You are maintaining that a person for whom their power exchange may be the most powerful and precious activity in their life should sit and listen to your theory that if they use a safe word they aren't REALLY exchanging power because the sub is REALLY in control. And you expect them to not see this as an attack? No, but then again, they have to be confident enough to see that. You provided the words "fake" and "real". You stop, you amend, you change, you are reacting to the instructions of your submissive, if those actions are based upon direct order or direct understanding. I don't apply the value, I only point out the obvious. Buried deeply in this dissertation, the basic premise remains and you have done nothing to change it. If anything, you've confirmed it.
Merc, you said:
quote:
If hearing yellow, green, plaid, or chartreuse, changes what you are doing, or if you'd stop hearing a safe-word from your submissive, in those instance at least the submissive maintains the control.
Please explain how this can read so as to exclude the following take on it:: in these instances the sub isn’t really submitting?
As for amending and changing I was calling you on using a roundabout way to assert the tired old claim that when doing things your way, the sub is really submitting but when doing things someone else’s way (with safewords) it isn’t “real” submission.
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Original Mercnbethquote:
Original Noah
Here’s your oscillation again. Back and forth between two positions. On one side you make categorical statements like: “They (safe words) don't protect against the exact thing that they are meant to” and “If hearing yellow, green, plaid, or chartreuse, changes what you are doing, or if you'd stop hearing a safe-word from your submissive, in those instance at least the submissive maintains the control.” and your driving metaphor which ruled that the driver is not in control of the car if he ever accedes to the passenger’s input on important issues, on the one hand.
So which is it, Merc? Which do you believe? That a submissive can indeed submit in the presence of a safe word or that she really can’t? That a dom can be in control while insisting on a safe word, or that he can’t?
And are you finally willing to grant that you were just plain wrong in asserting that safe words are only ever employed retroactively except in my hypothetical gun example?
You have given me no reason to do so. If the scene can be directed or stopped by the sub via any method of word or deed, color or driving the submissive in charge. If you enjoy that - have fun. I never indicated that you can't.
Meanwhile, until you provide the empirical evidence of the zillions of those using safe-words, I'll but them in the category as dangerous, avoid them, advise others not to use them. But if they don't agree and want to, it matters not to me.
You only see the back and forth, because you apply good/better/worse. I speak the way we live. For us, it's great, as yours is for you and the zillions of others.
You made a categorical claim that safewords are only used after the fact. To defeat a categorical claim does not require zillions of counter-examples. It only requires one. In fact you have been given several. I’m astounded that you have either failed to see this evidence repeatedly presented or that having seen it you would persist in denying that is stands before you in all its glory.
Merc, as I have indicated over and over, this aspect of the discussion, the dispute over the truth or falsity of your premiss, has nothing whatever to do with notions like good/better/worse. I and Celeste43 and several others have testified in very plain language as to the way we live. In our lives we have experienced the pre-emptive use of safewords. We are illustrating for a you an historical fact--not opinion; not evaluation--which we are each aware of and which you claim not to be aware of. My testimony is a report of empirical evidence as was that of Celeste as was that of each other person who posted to describe usage of safewords which was not after the fact. Other evidence is also on the table. The very nature of “Yellow/Red” safewording has a strong pre-emptive slant, and yes I’ll grant that the Yellow/Red scheme can also be employed in a strictly after the fact way. Both are possible.
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Original mercnbeth
If I missed anything you deemed more important to what was covered. Let me know.
Thank you for your thorough and obviously well considered response, Merc. The only thing which it seems to me you have missed is that factual question of whether your premiss about after-the-factness of safeword usage is of a different sort than the various subjective questions about the relative advisability of safeword usage, and needs to be independently established.
I will put it to you as plainly as I can. Setting aside all of the evaluative issues, where I believe you and I are very much if not perfectly in agreement, will you acknowledge the simple historical fact that safewords can be and in fact are used in ways which are not after-the-fact?
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RE: The use of safe-words - 
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