I do have a safe word: Enough. My rule is I never say I've had "enough" until its really true. I've not had to use it yet, though my Dom has reminded me that I can when he sees me push myself too hard. In general though we've developed a fair deal of body language understanding which allows him to keep me at my edge... maybe slightly over to the point that i start thinking of using it. But by the time i'm seriously thinking of using it, he's backing off. One of our signals is if i start breathing through my teeth in a hiss it means that i'm feelin it, and when i can no longer prevent my body from flinching away from the blows it means that i'm on my edge.

I don't top so i can't speak for the other side. ;-)

~bird.

As a bottom, I don't have much use for safewords outside of resistance scenes. I use plain English. "I need a rest." "Too much" work far better for most of my scenes. I safeword out when I need to, and have no emotional resistance to doing so.

As a top, yes, I have had someone use their safeword. If we're going for intense play, I can't truly know how much pain they are in and how much effect endorphins are having of their perception of pain. I don't want to play with someone who doesn't like to safeword.

~Sophia

Safewords for me are generally not an issue as a Dom... Generally I encourage a sub to have one but I can work with plain talk and that sort of mode of communication very easily. I think a good part of it is also knowing your partner's reactions and being able to read them.

The is one area I insist on them though... Resistance play... Often it is a situation where No does not mean no and the intensity can be high. I will react to anything they want to use whether it is the colors mentioned or just the term safe word, or even seriously stop... Adding seriously to it as a modifier is adequate to denote that play has hit an issue.

I have only had one person safe out on me... That was a grrl that thought I could not push her to where she needed to safe... Yeah she safed out and we had a hell of a good time finding those limits.

JSin

I'm absolutely terrible at safe-wording, so even though I have one, I don't use it, I just dump too far into sub-space. I actually found a couple of weekends ago (when I could not for the life of me remember my safe word) that just saying "safe word" worked beautifully .... my Dom is very perceptive and watches me like hawk in any case and usually knows when I'm done before I do ...

... yellow works well for me when I don't want things to end, necessarily, but there is something wrong that is interfering with the scene or the space somehow ... it gets fixed, and we move on ...

I have a few I use with a Top. My Red or Stop--holding hand up flat if in Sensory Dep, is definitely end of play. Yellow or quick snapping of my fingers (again, Sensory Dep) is I need to change position or I'm arching too fast, and Timeout is an emotional trigger being pushed. A Timeout is like a red most of the time, but its more discussion oriented and it only happened once.

I like to tease too and if I'm feeling the Top loving the tease, I'll totally play along, so "Lemon Yellow" is my brat word for go harder but at that rate 'cos damn that feels SO GOOD...its not really a safeword in that sense, its more of a communication flow word out of character. Clear as mud?

Kisses,
mae