P is for PRICK

P is for PRICK

Some BDSM folks will tell you Stay away from anyone who’s not SSC: Safe, Sane, and Consensual! They’ll claim anyone refusing to abide by those three cardinal rules is at best misguided and at worst predatory.

Well, hi. I’m one of those people.

For starters, the word safe is, at best, highly subjective. If you go by statistics, the biggest dangers we face in the dungeon are coronary heart failure and tripping over something – yet we insist on littering the floor with obstacles for our strange and exotic footwear and do not require AED training and cardio exams before we let people play. Everything I do could be argued to be more safe than some things (like skydiving) or less safe than others (like numismatics*).

But so what? I happen to firmly believe in the rights of skydivers, fetish players, and stamp collectors equally. If something is unsafe, then as long as I’m not endangering you nonconsensually, then I should have the right to do it. I should make sure I understand the dangers involved, and how to react when things may go wrong. I should also be aware that if something goes wrong that I wasn’t aware could happen, that’s most likely my own damn fault for not doing enough research.

And don’t give me bullshit about how people need to be regulated because “we all share the cost of healthcare.” I don’t happen to have any healthcare, so ain’t nobody sharin’ nuthin’ right now. If you really cared so much for the potential cost of my health you’d be offering me the $8k I need to get this hernia fixed.

No? Then shut the fuck up about how I don’t have the right to hurl my body into whatever danger I damn well please.

Before I get into a rant, let’s go for “sane.” Much like “safe”, it’s a highly subjective word. I know people who would say “He was naked outside! That’s insane!” where for me, it’s comfortable. Michelle Bachmann? That’s insane. The stuff I do? Hey, it’s fun.

Look, I enjoy tying up people and doing evil things to them. I enjoy rough sex in strange places and strange sex in rough places. I actively try to carry on the type of work that Flagg, may he rest in peace, talked about in his book the Forked Tongue: A Handbook for Treating People Badly.

Here is something you should never do to anyone. And here is exactly how to do it to someone you care about.

So the one thing I don’t have a problem with in SSC is the C: consensual. However, I happen to fall into the camp of only wanting to play with adults who are capable of creating consent with an awareness of the ways it can change. In other words, shit happens, and when it does, I would rather my partners spent their time helping me join them in a place of understanding what went wrong, how we can fix it, rather than a space filled with hyperbole and blame.

I know, I should just ask for a pony, too. Maybe P should be for Pony. But instead it’s for PRICK, which is what I prefer to SSC: