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more about your own limits and about your partner, you'll learn how to "stretch" and allow your limits to be pushed further and further. There's also no reason why the use of a safeword should mean that you have to stop playing entirely, unless that's the specific meaning you've negotiated for your safeword: you can safeword, drop out of the scene, do whatever communication is called for to make the scene work for everybody, and then go right back to stretching those limits. Don't give up on safewords... simply learn more about your own capabilities and desires.

    We have also met tops who want to dispose of safewords for certain scenes, such as punishment scenes ("How can I push limits if my bottom's just going to call safeword on me?"). We strongly suggest that you not allow this to happen with you. A possible compromise might be an agreement that you will do your best not to use your safeword because of intense sensation, but that you still have it in place if you need it due to extreme emotional distress (such as unexpected age regression or violent rage), an awareness of damage to your body, physical illness, or similar emergencies.

    Playing without a safeword may seem like a hot scene — that's the fantasy - but the reality is that in consensual BDSM there are always safewords or safeword-equivalents. They may be subtle, or based on a couple's knowledge of each other, or they may be normal speech or messages in the code of bottom and top roles, but they still function as safewords. When no form of safeword has been agreed on, the bottom has to resort to shrieking "Stop this scene you are a crud I hate you stop NOW!" to get the point across. We think safewords are a more civilized choice.

    We have met players who structure scenes by playing heavier and heavier until the bottom calls a safeword. This is not an appropriate goal for a scene: for most bottoms, using a safeword is associated with feelings of failure and shame. Most of us would rather end a scene by succeeding in taking some intense and difficult stimulus. Then everybody feels like a winner. Besides, any fool can do things to you that you dont like - why bother to play at
    all?

    We hope it never happens to you that you have to call safeword because your top has purposefully and maliciously violated a limit. But if it does, there may be no point in trying to continue the scene; trust has been broken. It may or may not be worthwhile to spend some time later in non-scene space trying to explain your feelings to this top, in hopes that he will learn something from the experience. Or you may find that later, when you're not in role and not under stress, you no longer perceive the top's actions as malicious - in which case you owe him an apology.

    But the vast majority of safeword situations fall under the "shit happens" category: something has gone wrong that neither the top nor the bottom could have reasonably predicted, or one partner has made an honest mistake. In this case, it is usually both possible and realistic to talk through what happened, agree on a solution to the problem, and proceed with the scene. You'll find it requires much less time to get back into the same space and level of arousal then it took to get there in the first place. Dossie remembers:

    The first year I did S/M with a partner, every scene we did ended in a safeword from one or the other of us. We were new and very nervous, and when one of us safeworded, we would throw all the toys and bondage stuff off the bed, have something to drink, agonize over whatever went wrong this time, despair a little, and then realize that we were terribly turned on and fuck like crazy amidst the abandoned piles of ropes and chains. It took us a long time to realize that these weren't failed scenes — they were successful ones!

    CheckIns. "Checkins" are a way for tops to take initiative to see how the bottom is doing and stay in touch with what's going on. Consent can thus be reaffirmed throughout