SSC vs. RACK

There was a prompt over on Kinky Sex Link that caught my eye, mostly because I think this topic has been inexplicably on my mind a lot lately. It has to do with the BDSM mantras of SSC and RACK. For those who dont know, SSC stands for Safe, Sane & Consensual, and RACK stands for Risk-Aware Consensual Kink. It's generally accepted in the BDSM world that SSC is a little stricter than RACK, shying away from play without safewords and most forms of edgeplay.

But enough on the vocab lesson. The question at KSL asked if the reader followed either of these mantras and if not, what safety measures did the person follow?

Ever since I found out about RACK as opposed to SSC, it's made a little more sense to me. I believe safewords are very useful and possibly even essential in certain environments, but I also believe there are situations in which they are not essential. For example, any time I go to a play party and engage in any kind of play, or witness any kind of play, safewords are made very clear and their freedom of use is made very clear - by which I mean that if a person is feeling less than 100% in any way, they should safeword. Of course, I should also explain that in my local scene, the commonly used safewords are "red," "yellow" and "green." Red obviously equals STOP, no ifs ands or buts about it. Yellow is pause for a moment, let's discuss. Green... well, you get the idea.

However, M and I have never used safewords in our play. Do I say it's because we know each other so well that we read each other's body language, gestures and facial expressions rather than a word coming from the mouth? Possibly. But I know there are couples as deeply connected as we are who use safewords, and that makes them no less connected than we are. So it's hard to say. I can say, however, that not using safewords works for us.

Then there's the other side of SSC vs. RACK - that of edgeplay. Of course, what constitutes edgeplay is highly subjective, but I think I can safely say that M and I are both into more than bondage and flogging - although I must say, my opinion of bondage and flogging is VERY high! We both love knifeplay, for instance, and I love needle play. I'm curious about bloodplay in general, as M and I are fluid bonded. Various other curiosities, and "one days."

If nothing else, however, I think there should be two rules abided by always: keep it consensual, and don't spread disease. I think that about covers it. And at least for me, that seems fairly easy!