Accidents Happen – SSC vs. RACK

We had a little accident last night.

Considering I’ve been doing this thing with Sir for almost ten years, long before he was officially Sir, I think that’s a damn good track record!

And we didn’t even have to go to the emergency room, unlike a certain Navy Seal who shall remain nameless. Ahem.

It was my fault. It was really a freak set of circumstances, but, I was the reason I got hurt. Sir was using the wooden spoon. I got a cramp in my foot and dropped my knee literally mid stroke, which meant that instead of the broad side of the spoon, I got hit with the edge and part of the handle… which is really narrow.

It didn’t even hurt that much, it was much less immediately painful than getting hit with the flat side. That whole thud vs. sting thing.

Sir stopped to check me right away. I told him I was fine. There wasn’t any visible damage, so he finished, staying away from that area.

When he stopped, he checked again, and I had a huge knot and my skin was getting tight and hot and red.

Yay! Hematoma! (I totally just sang that in my head to the tune of the Macarena. You’re welcome.)

He feels bad, even though I was the one who moved. He made me put ice on and off for like… two hours last night, and another two hours today. Seriously, ice hurts more than the bruise!

It’s pretty painful if I press on it, but otherwise it’s not taking up too much of my attention.

The swelling is a bit less today, but it’s starting to turn purple. It will probably take about 3 weeks to completely heal. Sir will avoid it that long, at least, because… safety. But it makes me think about a concept in BDSM that has gotten a lot of discussion in recent years.

Some people have heard of/are familiar with SSC – Safe, Sane, Consensual – as a guiding principle of S/M. While I still see some people in kink communities using this phrase, it is far more common at this point with non-kink people trying to talk about kink – writers, journalists, etc.

Interestingly, the man who is credited with coining the phrase just died. So… it feels a little odd deconstructing it here. But I imagine he’d be okay with it.

Safe. Sane. Consensual. It was an important step in BDSM culture. It was a simple guideline to package the ethical obligations of this thing that we do… in so many, many varieties.

But over the years, as we should, we evolved. We began, as a community, as a culture, as a species (I hope) to realize how words impact people, particularly already marginalized people. We began to notice that definitions, as much as some people want them to be absolute, are not.

One person’s “sane” is another person’s “madness” and we can’t really define “sanity” for anyone. Additionally, the use of that word as a guideline gets into sticky territory with defining people with mental illness or brain disorders. Are they sane? Can they consent? What does it mean to be sane? Is it “sane” to let someone beat you? To let someone stick needles through you? To suspend yourself in mid-air from meat hooks through your pecs?

Who defines sanity?

I’d NEVER do the meat hooks thing. But I don’t feel comfortable saying those who do aren’t sane. I don’t feel comfortable saying that if I were sane, I would be okay with it.

And so… “Sane” became a point of contention in the BDSM community.

Additionally, “safe” is equally vague and relative. Is it “safe” to hang yourself from meat hooks? Well, probably not inherently. But you can do things to decrease the likelihood of unintended risks – sterile equipment, gloves, disinfectant, solid education and skills, etc.

But, no, it isn’t, inherently, a safe activity.

Should people not be allowed to do it?

What about tying each other up with rope? Not as high risk, perhaps, as meat hooks, but… there are risks. Rope burn, loss of circulation, cramping… At the more extreme end – asphyxiation, loss of limbs, dislocation of joints, fractured bones…

Tons of people are into spanking and probably consider it “harmless” if done with a hand, but done incorrectly, or even just an unanticipated accident can result in injury or unintended distress.

Even standing in a corner holds an inherent risk. In my case, PTSD, trauma, hyper-vigilance – it can have a negative, unintended consequence of causing me a flashback, or just high anxiety to have my back to a room and lose my peripheral vision.

So… is it really “safe”? Is that an appropriate guideline? Does that really fit what we do? Is that reasonable?

Much as the “safe sex” ideologies have morphed into “safer sex” ideologies to acknowledge the reality that there is inherent risk in choosing to engage in sex, but there are things that can be done to minimize risks (though not completely eliminate them), BDSM communities are moving more and more towards the idea of RACK – Risk Aware Consensual Kink.

The consent stays. Even when we play with the lines of consent. Even when I give Sir blanket consent which overrides my resistance to him in a given moment, we are always, ultimately, engaging with consent.

I don’t talk about it often because, really, it doesn’t come up for me. But we have safewords. We have several safewords for different situations, or to convey different messages.

Generally, we use common language to communicate and don’t need safewords the way people need them if they enjoy being able to scream, “No, no, stop!” without the dominant actually stopping.

But we have them as a backup. A break glass in case of emergency. A shortcut to a very specific message. And a very clear signal that is unequivocal and carries an emotional impact that other words can’t.

We have them.

That doesn’t mean we aren’t TPE (total power exchange). It doesn’t mean that Sir isn’t 100% in charge and the boss. It doesn’t mean that whenever I don’t want my phone taken away or my ass beaten that I get to use my safeword to stop it.

If I did, then our contract, our dynamic, would be meaningless.

We have safewords for all the above reasons, and because… consent is the absolute uncrossable line.

I always consent. Even when I don’t like what he is doing in the moment. I consent to his authority to make that choice. And we revisit that…. frequently. Sir and SB do as well.

So… Consent stays.

But safe and sane… need an upgrade.

Risk-aware consensual kink addresses the inherent risks in the things we do, and guides us to be educated, to make informed choices, and to take precautions against unintended harm. Many of the things we do INTEND to cause harm. That’s what much of BDSM is. So, focusing on how to implement the intentional harm while minimizing collateral consequences is like safer sex. It isn’t about being 100% safe. It is about mitigation. And that has been an important evolution in our thinking as a community, as individuals, and hopefully it reflects broader evolution in social consciousness around many other issues more broadly applicable than BDSM.

And so… risk-aware consensual kink means… there are risks. It means despite all precautions, we are doing risky things and accidents will happen.

It means that our best won’t always be enough.

And that’s okay.

It’s okay to have an accident while doing everything you can not to.

Everything we have done to mitigate has protected us for ten years. We haven’t had a serious physical injury from punishment or play in our ten years playing. That’s fucking good!

And this isn’t a serious injury. Seriously. For some people, this is the GOAL, not an unintended side effect. We just don’t play that way, so when our shit hits the fan, we wind up where their bar begins.

We are educated. We are risk-aware. We are did what we could to prevent this happening. When it happened, we did the right things to assess, triage, and treat.

We’re good.

I choose this life, eyes open, cards on the table. I choose the risks of being in this relationship with PTSD, with past relationship violence, with past violations of my trust and consent, with a traumatized body that cramps at random moments and is a spin of the barrel round of Russian Roulette with autoimmune flairs every time I exercise, let alone do physical play or punishment.

I know what I’m doing. I know the risks. I choose to live my authentic life among them.