Pain and Safewords

Spankings Hurt

These two powerful words introduce us to the central hazard and glory of spanking. Manage the pain properly and you will be richly rewarded; but how to manage it is a matter of substantial complexity. This is an important section; please read it carefully.

Spankings Hurt a Lot

People who have recently been soundly spanked confirm the truth of this statement. Novices, however, are often completely unaware of the amount of pain produced by a hard spanking. In their minds, spanking is erotic and they imagine the pain as enhancing the erotic delight.

It doesn’t always work that way.

Now, by “spanking” I am including paddling, caning, tawsing, and strapping. Bear in mind that there are still judicial systems (Singapore comes to mind) in which the cane is used as punishment for criminals. Rest assured that being caned in Singapore produces unbearable pain. Similarly, the tawse and the strap are capable of producing an unbelievable level of suffering.

If you are in doubt about this, perform this simple experiment. Take a small paddle or large hairbrush. If you can’t find one of these items, then take a cheese or bread cutting board, or a similar-sized piece of plain wood as long as your forearm, as wide as your hand, and as thick as one of your fingers. Remove your pants or skirt. Sit comfortably. Take the paddle and give yourself one whack, as hard as you dare, on the top of your thigh.

I did this, just once, when I was first exploring real life spanking, and I was shocked by the pain. Sure, whacking yourself on your thigh isn’t the erotic event we have in mind, so presumably being paddled on the ass by an eager person of the opposite sex would be less punitive and more exciting. Nonetheless, the basic sensation of paddle hitting flesh does not change.

The fact that spankings hurt is not a bad thing; far from it. For most spanking lovers, the pain is an essential component of the experience. The goal is not to eliminate the pain. The goal is to manage it: to share the right kind of pain, at the right time, at the right intensity. Fortunately there are many ways to work toward this goal.

If you want to learn one woman's journey from fantasy to reality, written in her own words, check out Laury, Spankings Hurt.

Responsibility

The Top’s Duty

If you act as the top, you are largely responsible for your sub’s physical and emotional safety. This can be challenging.

Your sub may
• have a panic attack
• have a medical emergency
• be experiencing the wrong kind of pain
• and much more

Most of the work in ensuring a safe spanking takes place before you pull down your sub’s underwear. Ask about medical problems. Ask about positions that might cause problems. Learn as much as you can about this persons experience: I spank beginners very differently from the way I spank experienced subs. And of course you must learn what the sub wants and doesn’t want. Jay Weisman’s excellent book SM 101, available from Greenery Press and probably at y our local perv bookstore, has an excellent discussion of pre-scene negotiation.

Start the spanking with a warmup, as described in Technique. After you start spanking, stop long enough to ask how things are going. New tops sometimes worry that checking in with the sub like this will somehow spoil the scene. Nothing could be further from the truth1 When you ask if your sub is doing all right it serves as a powerful affirmation of your concern for his or her wellbeing and will help the sub give up control and relax into role.

An alternative inquiry is the hand squeeze. You squeeze the sub’s hand once; two squeezes in return means “I’m OK”; any other response (or none at all) calls for immediate action to find out where things stand.

Safewords

Safewords allow the sub to share in the responsibility for the scene.

Some people use a single safeword, but more commonly they come in pairs. Saying “yellow,” for instance, might mean “I’m having trouble handling this—please slow down or pause.” “Red” might mean “Stop. The scene is over.”

Common conventions on safewords include these:

• The sub has an obligation to use a safeword if needed . . . that’s what it’s there for.
• It is inappropriate for the top to force the sub to use a safeword
• If the sub uses a safeword the top must immediately respond as agreed to before the scene
• When the sub uses a safeword, it is good practice for the top to say “Thank you for letting me know something was wrong”
• Use of the safeword should not serve as grounds for additional punishment

These rules aren’t absolute and universal, but they’re a good place to start.

Safewords Are Your Friend

It’s common for new subs to want to be spanked without a safeword. They want “a real spanking.” It’s common for new tops to want to give a real spanking, too, and they can have trouble imagining how a spanking with a safeword would work. Doesn’t it defeat the whole purpose?

Not usually.

Yes, a spanking without a safeword in place could work well, especially if the sub is stoic. But suppose the sub begins howling, begging for the spanking to stop, saying, for instance, “Stop! It hurts too much!” What then?

If there is no safeword, the top might well feel compelled to stop. If there is a safeword, the top can reply, “’Stop! It hurts too much!’ isn’t a safeword” and continue spanking. Safewords are thus paradoxically the royal road to harder spankings.

As a couple comes to know each others’ spanking constitution over time, they may choose to abandon or simply forget their safewords. Abandoning safewords be done with caution, but there’s nothing wrong with it if the partners know and trust each other.

When in doubt . . .

stop sooner rather than later. There’s always next time.

The sub’s responsibility

The sub has a general duty to inform the top of any significant problem. Tops are not mind readers.

However, tops must understand that sometimes subs will say nothing even though they are in (unwelcome) distress.

The sub who doesn’t reveal a problem could be

• Frightened
• Overwhelmed
• Intimidated
• So deeply into the scene as to be unable to communicate that there is a problem or even unaware that a problem has developed
• Stubborn

The top therefore has an independent duty to pause, or stop the scene, if in doubt about the sub’s condition.

Subspace

Subspace is a little-understood but much-coveted sate of mind in which, at least sometimes, the sub fuses with the pain and enters a realm of masochistic delight. This thumbnail description does not do justice to the phenomenon; but it suggests the two cardinal elements of subspace. First, an alteration in consciousness. Second, a desire for the scene to continue indefinitely, often with increasing intensity. A sub in this condition wants the scene to go on forever; the top must therefore decide, alone, when to end the scene. And should not be surprised if the sub begs to continue.

Safewords' Purpose

Safewords are not primarily about health or physical safety; they’re about pain and emotional safety

Physical safety

The person being spanked has an absolute duty to inform the top of any health or safety problems that occur during the spanking, and the top has a corresponding absolute duty to respond immediately. This is better done with plain language than with safewords.

Suppose the bottom suddenly feels nauseated. The best thing to do is to say “I think I’m going to throw up.” This is clear and much more informative than calling, “Yellow!” or whatever safeword is in use. I certainly hope the top will react appropriately. The same is true for problems such as muscle cramps, feelings of faintness, and similar physical problems. The bottom must communicate and the top must respond.

Emotional safety

Things are a little trickier in the emotional realm. Some tops want their subs to be afraid, and some subs relish fear. In this case, saying, “I’m afraid” may be an erotic statement for both top and sub. On the other hand, if the fear is overwhelming and the top doesn’t understand that, the sub may perfectly appropriately use a safeword.

Pain

At their root, however, safewords are all about pain. Safewords offer a promise to the sub that the pain will never be beyond his or her ability to bear. This feature is both safewords’s most important contribution to safe play as well as the source of many people’s desire to dispense with them. Doing without safewords requires careful thought, but there are times when it can enhance your spanking experience.

Spanking Without Safewords

It’s obviously possible to spank without safewords. People who want to engage in spanking, but who do not know about the conventions of the spanking community, of necessity experiment, exploring spankings on the fly. Especially for couples in a committed relationship, safewords may be not only unneeded but an unnecessary hindrance to free play. A couple in which there is good communication and that simply starts with light spankings and works up gradually from there is likely to do well. Of course, this process will go more smoothly if they learn from others’ experiences, since spanking does have its pitfalls for the unprepared.

What about spanking without safewords for people who meet for the purpose of spanking play? Who have never played together before, or who, after using safewords for their first encounters, now want to try playing without safewords? Let’s take these possibilities in turn.

No safewords from the beginning . . .

This might work, and the odds are better if both partners are experienced. If either one of you is new I’d be very cautious.

Discontinuing safewords after you have been playing together for some time

Couples who have a good knowledge of each others’ spanking preferences and reactions sometimes agree to stop using safewords because they are unnecessary, or the safewords may simply atrophy from disuse. This is entirely reasonable; when you know you can balance on the wire, you have less need of a safety net.

Sometimes a couple wants to discontinue using safewords in order to play at a more intense level. When there is no safeword the encounter has a different feel, a sense that anything is possible, that this is closer to the pure punishment scenario of our fantasies. This is the couples’ prerogative, but I suggest that instead of dispensing with safewords altogether, that you suspend safewords for clearly limited periods during the scene. This allows you to explore the thrills of no-safeword territory without excessive risk (to either top or bottom). This method works because most spanking scenes are not a single spanking but rather a series of spanking segments.

Here’s how it works. The scene might start with a warmup, during which safewords are of course unnecessary. Then the top might say, “Now I am going to suspend your safewords and give you three minutes of hand spanking.” If this couple has done a reasonable amount of hand spanking before, they both have some idea of how challenging three minutes of hand spanking is likely to be for the sub. Perhaps they have done that much hand spanking in a previous scene, and the novelty will not be in the spanking itself but in the lack of a safeword. After the hand spanking, the top might say the safewords are available again, or check in with the sub, ask how things are going, and then announce a further no-safeword spanking segment. And if three minutes of hand spanking moved top and bottom closer to their own personal nirvanas, the next time they can try five minutes.

Back to safewords' purpose

The fundamental purpose of safewords is to help protect both top and bottom from getting in over their heads, from creating a situation that they regret. When discussing safewords it is important to keep this purpose in mind. One easy way to understand this better is to consider cases in which the spanking did not go right; to learn more, turn to

OVER THE TOP,

which will be posted as soon as I complete it. I'm not making any promises as to just when!

More about "spankings hurt" . . .

Laury, Spankings Hurt