Aswad
Posts: 9374
Joined: 4/4/2007
Status: offline
|
Okay, rather than posting every reply as I went along scanning the thread, I collected them here in a digest, along with my own post. Hope that doesn't piss anyone off; it's 4:40am here, so please be gentle with me. 
I also cut out a lot of compliments for "brevity", which is not to say that they weren't due, but this post is humongous already. If you want to skip to my replies, I've marked them with a centered bold-underline "My posts" heading in larger fonts, since I tend to write fairly long pieces when I provide examples or whatnot.
By the way, I think "pink" better suits the single-syllable rule than "yellow", although not in my own mother tongue.
My post:
It seems that there is a bit of disagreement over why safewords are used, and some misconceptions over how much control and observational powers a Dom can have. There are several rapid-onset problems that a Dom has absolutely no way of detecting, and the only way to safeguard against them is (IMO) to have a well-tested safeword system that has been proven to work. I'll offer up a single example of this, but it is a quite solid example of something the Dom cannot prevent, detect or respond to unless a safeword is in place; I'm sure others can provide theirs.
I don't usually disclose personal details on my mental helth history, so please be sensitive about it. Here goes:
I've been struggling with chronic major depression for more than a decade. Some time ago, I was prescribed a particular type of antidepressant called tranylcypromine (brand name Parnate), of the unselective irreversible MAO-inhibitor class, reserved for treatment refractory (what they used to call treatment resistant) patients. Those who recognize it will understand my example quite clearly.
With tranylcypromine, there are certain kinds of foods/ingredients to avoid, some of which may very rarely be present in the food without you knowing it, regardless of how well you check. These may precipitate what is known as a hypertensive crisis.
A hypertensive crisis may occur as late as 12 hours after ingesting the meal, meaning you will have no warning whatsoever. It has a very rapid onset of seconds to minutes; if you're very observant, you can sometimes get up to an hour advance warning, but not in any reliable way.
When such a crisis occurs, the blood pressure rises. Enough to cause cerebral haemorrage or cardiac arrest if not promptly treated.
Fatality rates when the patient is not immediately (no, not at the Emergency Room; on site) administered a rapid-onset blood pressure lowering medication is about 60-65% with intensive care.
The signs are pretty clear in an ordinary context, if your doctor has been responsible enough to tell you what to look out for, but could very easily be overlooked during play, especially in subspace or during pain play.
I have had one full-blown episode, for reasons yet unknown, although it seems likely the cause was internal: adrenaline cascade.
In the space of minutes, my blood pressure had reached about 250 over 180, with a resting pulse of about 140 beats per minute; compare this to my usual BP of 110 over 85, with a resting pulse of about 50 beats per minute. My head felt as if it would explode, and every step was like banging my head against a concrete wall. A friend that suffered a very weak episode, due to not taking the meds seriously enough, was incapacitated to the point of barely being able to stand partially upright with his back to a wall, and could just barely speak.
Yet, I have always taken my bond with nephandi very seriously, and was able to force myself to go fetch the blood pressure / pulse meter. When it reached the 250 over 180 point, it beeped and issued an off-the-scale error. I knew what this meant, and immediately called for help while administering an emergency blood-pressure medication intended for ER use that my pdoc had given me because he knows I am competent to use it (most docs defer my treatment to me, as they aren't).
Now, a person in subspace, or with lots of endorphins in their blood from pain, will not be incapacitated by the pain. And unless a well-tested safety mechanism is in place, that does not rely on external observation, and that they have been trained to use properly to keep their Dom/Top informed of their status, the Dom/Top will not know until they faint from cardiac arrest or start convulsing from cerebral haemorrage. By then it is already too late in the overwhelming majority of cases.
This risk can be managed by not playing, but not by trying to gauge the responses of a slave/sub/bottom. There are no physical signs that this is happening, unless you're an observant, well-trained doctor in doctor-mode and Dom/Top-mode at the same time. And the risk is paradoxically acceptable, as very few of these reactions occur.
Also, bear in mind that most patients are not as aware of the issues as I am; I have been consulted by pdocs in the past, and have successfully treated-by-proxy every person whose pdocs followed my recommendations. This is not to pound my own chest, but to point out that the slave/sub/bottom is unlikely to even consider that this is something that could affect their play. G*d knows I'd rather not put this stuff on a Google-cached website like CollarMe; one wonders why they don't use robots.txt, given the sensitive position of BDSM in our society... But an example was called for.
And before anyone starts touting this as a one-in-a-million chance (which is just another way of saying there are 6000 more out there), I'll point out that there are any number of other psychological or physical adverse events that can happen. Either ones that might be detected in time (e.g. anaphylaxis due to an unexpected allergic reaction to something) or ones that might not. I'll just list a few of the latter for good measure:
- Adverse drug reactions; these are fortunately rare.
- Epileptic complex partial seizures; a surprisingly large number of people have these without realizing it, and some of them can easily go undetected. Status epilepticus, even for this subtype of seizures, needs to be dealt with in a hospital, preferably inside 30 minutes of onset.
- Psychological adverse event; given the prevalence of repressed memories (no, not the kind that is related to the now quite thoroughly discredited "therapy" of "uncovering" them), normally subclinical or undiagnosed mental illness, phobias you never realized you had, and so forth... you may have no way of knowing that this person has suddenly triggered on something and is stuck in a negative feedback loop of panic and/or psychosis; the only reliable way is to detect it before it cascades.
- Cerebrovascular events; sometimes, the clues are subtle, and initially only detectable to the person experiencing them.
Anyway, just food for thought.
My apologies for being so long-winded.
My replies:
N4SDChastity,
The handkerchief was an interesting idea. Thank you, I'll bear that one in mind.
And you are not the only one to end up with your foot in your mouth. I'm pretty sure at least one of my replies was typed with one foot on the keyboard, and the other firmly embedded in my esophagus. Although I wasn't dropped on my head as a baby; rather, I fell onto a sharp rock in kindergarden. :P
sweekles,
That's a very interesting point. Girls can be just as competitive as guys, if not more so. If one is playing with two of them at the same time, it would seem likely that they might consciously or subconsciously be competing with each other about who is able to go further for their Dom. I've seen this in other areas, and have heard this complaint from poly-slave people before.
oneofliberty,
A single safeword, to my mind, is there to be used when the slave/sub/bottom suspects that there is a real chance of injury being sustained if one proceeds, or having been sustained already. Communicating this is paramount, and if only one safeword is used, this has to be confined to that meaning, IMO.
Around these parts, it is common to have two safewords for this reason. One, usually "pink", that indicates that the Dom is hitting a limit, or that there's something else s/he needs to be aware of ("I have to pee. Now."), and another, usually "red", that means what I just said: that play has to be interrupted immediately for health reasons.
Elorin,
It is nice to see someone else that also considers things from a mental health perspective.
Someone with a phobia they aren't aware of, anxiety, complex partial seizures or what-have-you, can easily be set off in a very bad negative feedback loop in no time at all, given the wrong stimuli, and there just isn't any reliable way of knowing this in advance.
I know nephandi well enough to sense if such a cascade is on its way, I've had eight years to know her and I am conservative about asking/checking, but I wouldn't dream of playing with someone else without a system of safewords. Also, with nephandi, I know everything that is going on in her life, and most of what ever has, so I have a lot more background to screen for unexpected risks.
Your advice on intentionally pushing them to use the safeword, and training them in its use (as I read it, pretty much to the point of reflexive conditioning), makes all kinds of sense.
It's like what I do with computer systems: never rely on a system that hasn't been fully tested and demonstrated to work after spec and to production standards, or it will invariably fail and all hell will break loose. Safewords must ever be a tool, not a crutch, and a honed tool that both parties know how to use.
As for healing the other pain, I get it, although I'm generally skeptical of that, having seen too many people try to deal with pain they don't understand without even having the tools to deal with it if they DID understand. Note that I'm not saying this is the case with you. I do subscribe to it myself, and try to employ things like the relevant parts of CBT (the therapy, not the genitorture) for this.
yenlui,
Pushing someone past their limits in order to hear them use the safeword has the effect of making sure they will use it that one time when you have an accident or whatnot. And, depending on the definition of "limits", it may be positive. There is a difference between giving someone more pain than they can bear without crying (which is one "limit"), and giving them so much that they dissociate, for instance.
And I don't think he was talking about breaking pre-negotiated limits, just breaking the limits of their endurance, which can happen.
MstrssPassion,
Perhaps we read the posts differently, but I found most of them directly relevant to the OP, and most of them offered advice. Also, note that threads will involve replies to participants as well as the OP. That's why it is called a "forum", rather than "mail".
If I correctly understood which sense of the word limitations you were using, then it appears we don't all agree on that. Although I do think he needs a way of handling it, and that he should find one before playing more.
Lashra,
If a sub cannot handle their share of the responsibility, whatever the reason, how can one have any safe play? There are, as Elorin pointed out, any number of reasons why a sub might need to use their safeword, and if they are unable to under circumstances they will encounter, then they cannot engage in safe, consensual play in that way, because it will never be safe.
The only way you can play safely with them if you aren't confident they will be able and willing to use the safeword under certain circumstances, is to make sure you never take them there. If subspace prevents them from speaking a single syllable or making a single unambigous gesture (e.g. the handkerchief suggestion), then you cannot take them into subspace without risk.
That said, mileages vary with regards to acceptable risk, of course.
KnightofMists,
Calling someone an idiot on a public forum of their peers, especially without knowing them intimately, is a pretty serious insult that also lacks content. Why not explain your position and leave it at that, or at least take the name-calling over PM?
And as for "common sense"... a favourite quote of mine goes "Common sense is the sum of all prejudices accumulated by adulthood", and is by Albert Einstein. While he may have been an idiot for all I know, he sure fooled me, and by the looks of things the majority of the physics crowd as well. No offense intended.
Again, sorry for going on too long, and for any blunders along the way. I most certainly did not mean to offend anyone.
Kind regards,
Aswad.
|
RE: refusing to use safeword - 
Profile
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread