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safety for the dominant.
    Of course, as the relationship matures, a dominant will become more familiar with the submissive’s reactions and safewords become less important. However, they shouldn’t ever be discarded. Fatigue, distraction or changes in the submissive’s physical or psychological functioning make them an important backup in all BDSM relationships.
    Protect us from our “protectors”
    Among some groups and individuals outside of the BDSM community, there is a vocal contention that some people are not competent to give their consent. Like most generalizations, this one has a degree of truth. The law recognizes that some individuals are separated from reality to such an extent they constitute a danger to themselves and/or to society at large. They are considered “non compos mentis,” not of sound mind.
    In the last few decades, exacting rules have been enacted to prevent people from being declared non compos mentis at the whim of someone in authority. However, in the past, people have been committed to mental hospitals for such minor idiosyncrasies as failing to bathe or for desiring daily sex from their spouse. In addition, certain groups, such as minors, are considered by law to lack competency and the ability to make trustworthy decisions.
    Normally, it takes a pattern of irrational behavior to motivate a court to rule someone incompetent, and this ruling is deemed universally applicable. A person who is found incompetent has all of his or her decisions removed and placed in the hands of another.
    However, a few of the previously mentioned groups would both narrow and broaden the definitions of competence and incompetence. For example, some extremists argue that today’s society is so male-dominated that a woman cannot truly consent to any form of heterosexual intercourse, whether it is vanilla or in the context of BDSM. In effect, they argue that any act of heterosexual sex is rape, and the only consensual sexual activities a woman can engage in are with other women. Lesbian sex, by their definition, is based on equality.
    Although they would hold that a woman who desires heterosexual intercourse is not competent to make that decision because of the domination of society by males, they would not extend it to the point of denying her the right to make contracts, buy property or go into business in that same society. They also fail to see that BDSM relationships thrive between lesbians, as reflected in the rich and growing body of lesbian BDSM fiction.
    Others take a more moderate approach. Vanilla sex is considered acceptable as long as both partners mouth the right words about equality and acceptance. However, when someone, usually a woman, engages in BDSM activities as a submissive, it is then taken as prima facie evidence that that person is incapable of giving consent, a classic Catch-22.
    It is difficult to argue with these people. Their beliefs have often hardened to such an extent that they are unable to recognize loving, supportive couples even when they meet them in person.
    Moreover, there are undoubtedly individuals and couples in the scene who desire or take part in activities which most would find frightening or repulsive. The Correct Sadist (a highly overrated and not particularly informative book) describes a man whose cock had been mutilated until it resembled a peeled banana. Michele, a dear friend, told me of a man whose ankle had been pierced to such an extent that he could be literally hung from a meat hook.
    However, while we might desire to avert our eyes from what, to us, are “disgusting” activities, taking the approach that the participants in these activities are somehow less sane than ourselves puts us on a slippery slope. If it is possible to reject a person’s ability to give consent simply on a basis of a desire for mutilation, could it not be argued that a desire for whipping or bondage would be equally likely to indicate derangement?
    Moving it out of the emotionally