Dear Chris, your posting was sent to me by my slave, Pam. She asked me to give whatever advice I could. As always it is my pleasure to please my slave and also to help others.

I have been, and am a full time real life Dominant and have lived this way with my wife Barb for 25 years. It is not that I am so smart but rather a good submissive like Barb can do a lot of training of her master in 25 years.

I have had the benefit of much learning through trial and error, as well as a lot of seminars and reading. With that said, it is with the understanding that not all of my advice is gospel, but you may find a grain of truth that you and yours may wish to adopt.

I always give a sub a safeword. Many times the sub will scoff at this saying they could not use one, or that they do not want the power. My usual reply is that if they happen to notice that the house is on fire, I would like them to use the safe word. That is basically how I feel about it. There may be some thing that I am not aware of and the sub is that Should stop the scene. It is also something that the top can use. It may be handy for him to be able to communicate to the sub very quickly that he is out of scene. For example ""safeword" I think the relatives have just pulled up in the driveway!"

There are many valid reasons to establish a safe word. I will give more later.

It is a way of building trust. A sub that does not use a safeword and consents to something that they truly do not like is giving quite a special gift to the top. I personally would not want to miss out on such a gift for lack of the confidence and trust inspired by a safeword.

Trust is one of the most important things in a relationship. Safewords help build trust. Your top wants that very much and so do you, he even said "don't you trust me". It is obvious that trust is an important issue. A safeword can help to build trust. He can trust your willingness to please him. You can trust his willingness not to exceed your limits. You can also go farther in raising limits with a safeword in place. Knowing that you can communicate that you are at your limit in one word allows you to go right to the edge without worrying, and protecting yourself by starting to holler before you have actually reached your limit.

I also use two safewords. One is a physical word. I have reached my physical limits. I find that good way to distinguish this is using the safeword "mercy". The sub is told that if she asks for mercy it WILL be given. The power is not taken back by a scene stopping safeword, it is just a guarantee by the top that the scene or activity will stop if "mercy" is asked for. It very important for the top to stop! That will build the necessary trust. I have had, and expect subs to test this from time to time. I even assure them that even that is a valid reason to use a safeword. You have the right to be sure about who you place your trust in. I test my subs and they test me until we are sure enough, then we can go to a higher level of play. And when I say play I am often not playing. It is as real as it gets. That is when you really need to be sure and the pasts tests and trust building will allow for this.

The other is a mental safeword. I have been in scenes when everything is going just right and out of the blue comes an emotion or a remembrance that is so strong the sub needs to and should clue the top in on what is happening in her head. It doesn't mean that she wants the scene to stop, just that this emotion or memory has flooded in. It can be a very good and healing experience. The top should be brought into this and an emotional safeword will help. My wife picked "panic" as her emotional safeword. Her other one is crying but that one is a little hard on me. I prefer "panic". Once I was doing a wonderful scene with a sub in a harness like a rock climber uses. She was suspended from an A-frame. She was swinging while being spanked. This brought back a memory for her from when she was about 5 years old. Her daddy was pushing her on a swing. He accidentally pushed her out of the swing and she cut her chin. He yelled at her and spanked her. Maybe he was just scared and acted dumb. She had not recalled this in years but the swinging and spanking just brought it back. I just stopped the activity and let her talk and tell the story. Then she was fine and we went back to the scene. After the scene she said that it was a very healing experience for her and she was glad I listened but did not stop the whole scene. Emotional safewords add another element of communication. This communication is mostly for the Tops benefit. Give your sub the two safewords, both emotional and physical, and then threaten some form of torture. See if she responds with the emotional safeword. This can tell you a lot about how she feels. You have not actually done anything physically yet so the physical safeword would have no real meaning. Offer the choice between physical and humiliating, or emotionally difficult acts. With both safewords in place you can push the limits a little. I often will ask for a sub to agree to an act. I may have no intention of performing that particular act. If she refuses then I make her look at why, real hard. Why not try? If it is something that she has not done before she can not really know what it feels like. She can only guess at what it really feels like. With the safewords in place she can be allowed to feel it up to what ever limits she has at the time. Then she may be willing to try to do something she does not think she can do. If the top assures her that what he wants is for her to try and that she can not fail him, because the success is in the trying of something she is afraid of. This can lead to some amazing results.

Some other good reasons for safewords: The bdsm community believes in them. Thousands of people with years and years of experience use them. It really can't hurt anything. It is so much fun to punish a sub if she forgets what her safeword is. I would not ever want to go into court and explain about the fake rape scene without a safeword firmly in place. The jury might not believe the sub no matter what she says. But how many people involved in non-consensual acts give out safewords. A subs limits change from day to day and minute to minute. You may be doing something that has been done before and not know that you are exceeding limits. A lot of factors go into limits. The sub might be playing with someone else and if she is not trained to use safewords when she should, she may not. I would rather train my sub to be safe and allow her to play safe. I think it is good training.

Yours in Trust,
Master Len